


Arrhythmia

by Chromi



Series: Arrhythmia [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Ace Is OK, Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blow Jobs, Come Swallowing, Comfort/Angst, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dad Thatch, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, Falling In Love, Family Issues, Family Loss, Frottage, Grinding, Kissing, Laughter During Sex, M/M, Masturbation, Medical, Mentions of Cancer, Minor Character Death, Minor Original Character(s), Neck Kissing, Nipple Play, POV Alternating, Past Character Death, Slow Burn, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2020-05-31 06:57:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 85,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19420813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chromi/pseuds/Chromi
Summary: Marco, senior cardiologist, is one day presented with a case that doesn't fall under his speciality in the form of the new guy in the department. Marco suspects that Ace is suffering with acute stress, but what is the cause? Can Marco help when he is so well and truly out of his depth with this one?





	1. Chapter 1

This was nothing unusual, to have a member of staff approach him at his desk and ask him for advice or help. He never turned them away, unlike some of his colleagues in other departments, and was actually secretly pleased to be presented with small challenges that wouldn’t lead to the requesting of scans and diagnostic tests, follow-up appointments, and someone kicking off because they didn’t agree with the diagnosis he’d given.

The last person to come to him had been one of the older secretaries, encouraged by her colleague, asking for him to just check that she’d dressed a bad scald to her arm correctly. Marco had clapped his hands together in delight, telling her to take a seat and show him what she’d done. He’d had nothing but praise for the way she had bandaged the rather sizeable scald to her forearm in plastic food wrap, and had informed her that she should keep it on while at work and then let the air to it in the evenings, but above all to keep it dry.

The time before that it was a younger secretary who had hobbled in without knocking, her foot stuck out at an awkward angle with a bloody toe, having just accidentally kicked the heavy metal door into the building. He’d grabbed the department’s first aid kit and had cleaned her up and sealed the small wound with a band-aid, giving her the remaining painkillers that lurked in his briefcase and getting her to flex her toes before deciding she wouldn’t need an x-ray.

But today, when a young man trotted in looking incredibly embarrassed, Marco had simply looked at him at first. He knew the secretary who accompanied him very well - she was Nami, Marco’s own personal secretary - but he didn’t recognise the man. Marco raised an eyebrow at his secretary, waiting for an explanation.

“Have you met Ace yet?” She asked, gesturing to the man who looked as though he very much wanted to leave. “He’s the guy who’s combing through the old follow-up lists for Dr. Thatch and trying to sort out that whole mess.” She sighed when Marco continued to look blankly at her. “The revalidation work? That Dr. Thatch has been working on for months? No?”

He knew Edward had been doing something - he certainly hadn’t been running clinics, at least - but he would have been lying if he said he’d paid much attention to what was going on outside of his own black hole that was his work. “OK?” He started tentatively, shutting up when Nami placed a hand on her hip and gave him that look that let him know he had probably said the wrong thing.

“Well, he’s got a bit of a problem,” Nami continued as Ace shifted his weight from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable, “and none of the other docs are here at the moment, otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered you. Would you mind taking a look at him?”

Normally, Marco would have been eager to see a problem outside of his speciality - cardiology - but the way Ace avoided his eyes made him question whether perhaps the young man would have preferred to talk to one of the nurses in the department; they were significantly better at dealing with nervous patients than he was.

“Sure,” he said, perhaps against his better judgement. “What’s up?”

Ace looked at the doctor for the first time since entering the room, and Marco wasn’t surprised to see the defiant and angry look there in his eyes. People tended to look at him like that in clinic when they felt vulnerable and hurt, even though they knew he was there to help him, not judge whatever was affecting them.

“Something’s wrong with my skin,” Ace mumbled as Marco gave him his full attention. “I’ve got these great big splotches all over me and I don’t know what they are. I feel diseased.”

“Right,” Marco said slowly, the vague symptom description not a lot to go on. “Where exactly are these splotches?”

“Everywhere,” Ace said, gesturing to his abdomen, “literally everywhere from my chest to my thighs. And they’re itchy, too.”

Marco nodded and looked to Nami now, who read her doctor’s expression correctly and left the room, closing the door behind her as she went.

Marco settled back into his chair as Ace looked around at the loss of his colleague, slightly panicked. “Have you been in contact with anything you wouldn’t normally be, like different plants or maybe a change in your laundry detergent?” Marco asked calmly, drawing Ace’s attention back to himself.

“No, neither.”

“Any changes to your diet?”

“No.”

“And you’re otherwise healthy?”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

Marco thought for a moment, then asked, “would you mind if I had a look at them?”

Ace grimaced. “They’re hideous, but I guess, sure.”

Marco smiled kindly, reassuringly. “I’m sure it’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” he said, and Ace seemed to relax a little at this.

“You can’t get many skin-related problems coming through your door as a cardiologist,” Ace said as he unbuttoned his pale yellow shirt, fiddling with the buttons more than was probably necessary.

“No, but sometimes symptoms of underlying problems show up in places you wouldn’t expect,” Marco pointed out, “plus, skin complaints are quite common in general medicine, and I saw all sorts during my time in training.”

“So you’ll know what this is?”

“Yes, most likely.”

Ace hesitated, keeping his shirt closed tight as he dithered. Then he pulled it open, revealing his chest and abdomen to the doctor. His body was indeed covered with ‘splotches’, angry-red patches of sore-looking skin spattered across him with dustings of broken blood vessels between the patches where Ace had obviously been raking his nails over irritated skin.

Marco looked at him closely, noting Ace’s impressively prominent abdominal muscles and wondering just how long the man had been in this state before looking for help. Marco had the distinct feeling that Ace had mentioned it to Nami in conversation and she had taken it upon herself to get him looked at.

“This,” he said after a few silent seconds, sitting back in his seat, “is a form of psoriasis. It’s a relatively common skin condition. It isn’t contagious, so don’t worry. Have you ever had this happen before?”

“No,” Ace replied, closing his shirt and beginning to button it up again. “I’ve never really had anything wrong with me.”

Marco rolled his office chair back to his desk and pulled out what he and the other doctors fondly called The Bible, a medical book with every medication prescribable detailed inside, the doses they could be prescribed at, and symptoms or conditions that required the medications. He flicked through until he found the section he was looking for and skimmed down the page.

“Have you been under any stress recently?”

“I’m always stressed,” Ace said with something of a laugh.

“More so than normal, then?”

The young man didn’t answer, and Marco looked up at him in the absence of a reply. Ace looked drawn and tense, and a flicker of concern lit in Marco for the man. He took that as a yes.

“I’ll give you a prescription for a steroid cream that should clear it up,” Marco said, opening a drawer and rummaging through it. “Use a light layer over each red patch once a day, and let me know how you’re getting on in a couple of weeks. They might not be completely gone by then, but they should be a lot better.”

Marco frowned into his drawer, unable to find that damn prescription pad. One of the nurses probably had it again. “Sorry, can you ask Nami to check the nurses’ office for the prescription pad? It usually winds up in there when not in here.”

Ace ducked out of the room in a heartbeat, very clearly glad to be away from the doctor. Marco couldn’t say he blamed him; the psoriasis was severe, the worst he had ever seen in person, in fact, but he hadn’t felt it necessary to share that with Ace. It was definitely caused by stress, there was no doubt about it. Marco’s ideal advice would have been ‘stop being so stressed’, but if useless sentences like that had ever worked then there would have been no use for the entirety of the psychology department.

Nami came back in after a moment, waving the familiar small pad of paper at her doctor. “Lookie what I found buried under a stack of paper on Robin’s desk,” she said brightly, handing it to Marco. “You should keep it locked away, y’know.”

“I do,” Marco sighed, scribbling out the prescription and tearing it off the pad; he hoped the hospital’s pharmacy would be able to read his writing this time. “But Robin must know where I keep the key to these drawers.”

He got up and passed Nami at the doorway before pausing and turning back to her. “Where does he sit?” He asked quietly; he had already forgotten Ace’s name, and he had no idea if the man even shared an office with the secretarial team or not. Remembering names wasn’t his strong point, even occasionally having a lapse in memory and calling Nami by the name of his old secretary from years prior, much to her immense irritation.

Nami sighed and nodded towards a small office down the corridor, the one where the department’s registrars worked. “He’s not a permanent member of the team so he’s desk-hopping for now,” she explained. “He’s going to fix up Dr. Thatch’s mess and then get assigned somewhere else. His dad’s Roger Gold,” she said, giving Marco a significant look; Roger Gold was the CEO of their hospital, “so he basically gets assigned wherever takes his fancy, no questions asked.”

Marco looked impressed; he hadn’t even known Roger had a son. “And he fancied sitting in a tiny office, pouring over a list of patients?” He asked in a hushed voice, not wanting to be overheard. Nami shrugged.

Marco entered the small office to find Ace sitting alone at his desk, checking his phone. He jumped a mile when he noticed the doctor beside him, dropping his phone before locking the screen and looking up with a scared expression. Marco found this odd; he didn’t care if the guy was on his phone, he wasn’t his manager.

“I’ve done your prescription,” Marco said, choosing to ignore the glare that Ace gave him, “but I need to add in your details. That OK?”

Ace nodded and handed Marco a pen for him to fill in the little box at the top of the form. Ace gave him his birth date and address, watching as the pen nib hovered over the _name_ section.

“Ace Gold,” the young man said with something of a sneer at the name. _Ah, yes, that was it._

“Roger Gold’s your father, right?” Marco asked conversationally as he wrote the somewhat unusual name before signing the prescription.

“Biologically, yeah.” Ace took the prescription that was handed to him, looking it over. “He’s a bit of a shit father figure, if you ask me.”

Marco assumed Ace meant that Roger had perhaps never had much time for him or any siblings he might have, what with his job probably keeping him away from the family quite a lot.

“That prescription’s only good at this hospital’s pharmacy,” Marco explained, changing the subject as Ace very clearly didn’t want to talk about his family, “so make sure you hand it in to them and not your regular pharmacy, OK? Feel free to drop in and see me if it gets worse or you have any questions.”

Marco gave the young man a smile and was a little surprised to get one back in return. It suited him far better than the frown that had clouded his face before.

Marco left the room and stopped at his office to pick up his briefcase and log off the computer, checking his watch and realising with a start that clinic was due to begin in 10 minutes. He’d have enough time to wonder over to the outpatients department and pick up a coffee before checking into his clinic room for the morning.

“I’m off, Nami,” he told his secretary, popping into the much larger office where the secretarial team sat together. “Don’t forget to email me the dates for the next joint clinics with respiratory.”

“I’ve already done it!” Nami huffed. Marco laughed and thanked her as he left.

* * *

Ace and his psoriasis didn’t cross Marco’s mind again for the next two weeks, the whole event wiped from his thoughts that morning as he had gone about his usual morning clinic. One of his new patients, who had been referred to him for episodes of what were thought to be odd syncope, had slid from their chair to the floor in a tonic-clonic epileptic seizure, and Marco had had the good fortune of being able to find a neurologist colleague also in clinic at the same time to come and assess and take over their care. The rest of that morning had been a blur to him after that.

“So how’s your validating thing coming along?” was the sentence that made Marco remember Ace again for the first time in two weeks. He hadn’t seen him around the offices at all, which he supposed wasn’t unusual given that he himself didn’t frequent them much; the majority of his time was spent in clinic or in meetings, after all.

“All right, I guess,” Edward Thatch replied through a mouthful of lunch, “depends how you look at it, really. They’ve got me making a Powerpoint presentation about the lists from two years ago and how it’s all supposedly sorted now. The secretaries are going nuts with all the appointments that their manager’s asking them to book; my own’s come complaining at me several times but it’s out of my hands now, I’m just doing what I’m told at this point.”

They sat opposite their mutual friend and colleague, Trafalgar Law, vascular surgeon, in the hospital’s enormous canteen, tucked away in a corner of the section of the room that was reserved for staff who weren’t keen on mingling with the public. Hardly any of the senior staff within the hospital ever ate there - it was mainly teams of physiotherapists and admin support who took the time to socialise a little with their colleagues - but Marco, Thatch, and Law made a point of taking lunch together on Fridays to catch up if they could.

“Total waste of my time, if you ask me,” Thatch continued, shaking his head at the indignation of his task. “I haven’t run clinic for a few months now and I miss my patients. Yeah, you heard that right. I hate it. I feel like admin support instead of a doctor.”

“Sounds fun,” Law grinned, spearing a fry and munching on it as Thatch heaved a sigh. “Why were you roped into this in the first place?”

“When I had that problem with my gallbladder I had to take time away from clinics to recover, remember?” Thatch looked affronted at the mere memory of the incident. He had been unwell for a while, generally feeling run down and sick in the lead up to being rushed to the ER for an emergency cholesystectomy. “My secretary cancelled my clinics for two months, as asked. Well, the higher ups quite liked it when I came back early to have a crack at catching up with my admin without having the stress of clinics going on, and they sweet-talked me into helping with this. Now they’re having my secretary cancel clinics on a rolling monthly basis while they keep me locked up and doing their dirty work for them.”

“You could just say no, y’know,” Marco pointed out, grinning at Law as Thatch huffed and gestured at him with his fork, spaghetti swinging wildly from it.

“I tried, they said no,” he grumbled, “but on the bright side it won’t take much longer now that I’ve got Ace working with me.”  
  
”Who?” Asked Law, raising an eyebrow.

“Ace, this guy they plucked out the air from somewhere. Nice guy, early-to-mid-twenties at a guess, very efficient and does what he’s told without complaining. I’ll be sad to see him go.”

“Couldn’t they have just got him to do the whole thing instead of you?” Law frowned, clearly wondering how this oversight had happened.

“Nah,” Thatch waved a hand dismissively, “they needed a doctor to check every case to see if the patients still need to be followed up or if they could be discharged, and bingo, here’s a doctor with loads of free time, apparently.”

“Ah, that’s right, you did say so before,” Law remembered.

They finished up their lunches and put their plates away on a nearby trolley to be collected, and Marco and Thatch bade Law goodbye as he left for the theatre changing rooms to get dressed into his scrubs for his surgical list that afternoon.

The two doctors wandered back over to their offices away from the main hospital building, taking the leisurely route for a change and enjoying the early summer sunshine as they chatted about Thatch’s weekend plans with his kids.

Thatch ducked into his office as they opened the door into the cardiology corridor, grabbing up his briefcase and car keys and hurrying back out before Marco had even unlocked his own office door.

“I’m going to make a break for it,” Thatch explained in a hurry at Marco’s raised eyebrow, “I can’t spend another minute at that damn computer today, Marco, I’ll lose my mind. If they come looking for me, tell them Emily’s been taken sick or something, I don’t know.” Emily was Thatch’s youngest daughter of three, and Marco knew her to be extremely excited for her fast approaching eighth birthday party.

“Have fun,” Marco grinned as Thatch clapped him on the shoulder and strode back down the corridor, calling goodbye to his bemused secretary as he passed their office.

Marco opened the door to his office and popped open his own briefcase, dropping his wallet in there before collapsing into his desk chair with a sigh. Friday afternoons were his designated admin time and they never failed to leave him feeling slow and sluggish, especially in the warmth of summer. Nami was away today for her sister’s wedding, she had reminded him yesterday afternoon, adding an orange sticky note to his computer monitor to remind him of this fact as he was certain to have forgotten by the Friday morning.

“Dr. White?” A woman - Thatch’s secretary - knocked on his door and entered. She was a nice woman in her mid-fifties, a strong-willed individual with the patience and firm approach needed for keeping someone as all over the place as Thatch in line.

“Hi, Miranda,” he said, turning his computer on and crossing a leg over the over. “Wondering where Ed’s rushed off to?”

“How did you guess?” She asked with a wry smile, crossing her arms. “Ace was looking for him while you were at lunch; he’s not going to be happy when he finds out he’s swanned off of his own accord.”

“Emily’s sick,” Marco lied, his sheepish expression a complete giveaway as Miranda raised an eyebrow at him. “OK, no, she isn’t, but he probably would have flung his computer out of the window if he’d stayed here. He’s sick to death of this work.”

Miranda hummed in agreement. “He’s not the only one,” she confessed, turning to leave the room. “I’ll leave you in peace, then.”

Marco made very little progress with his paperwork that afternoon due in part because of the general warmth and sleepiness that always came after his lunch with Thatch and Law, and also due to the copious amounts of emails he had received since the morning from an array of people - requests for ward visits, reminders about a conference he was to run next week, advice requests from junior doctors, and even an email from a patient who was also a member of staff, taking it upon herself to ask him personally if she could be seen in clinic sooner than she was due. Marco replied to them all slowly, copying Nami into each and every one of them and feeling slightly sorry for filling up her inbox during her absence.

He stayed late that evening, long after the secretaries and other doctors had all left, having no desire whatsoever to leave the comfort of his office and return home, if he could call it that. The lonely two-bedroomed apartment he had could hardly be called a home, serving only as somewhere to sleep. Thatch always told him that he should buy a nice house and do it up to his liking - he certainly had the income for almost whatever he wanted - but living alone in a house seemed so much more lonely than living alone in an apartment.

Marco thought of the ale in his fridge that he would drink, alone, upon returning home. Of the inevitable takeout he would get but hardly touch, and the film on Netflix he would likely fall asleep to. He heaved a sigh and took out his phone from his pocket, wondering if Law would be around and up for whiling away the night with him in a bar.

He got a response to his text within minutes, but his shoulders sagged at the reply:

_Can’t, out for Gerard’s 60th already. Maybe next weekend?_

Marco sighed and started texting Thatch instead. He should have remembered that one of Law’s surgeon colleagues was having his birthday drinks tonight. Thatch’s response was just as disappointing:

_Emily is actually genuinely sick. No lie. So’s Fiona. Feel free to come over and nurse them with me though_

Marco smiled despite himself as he replied, telling his friend he hoped his daughter and wife got better soon but declining his offer.

He could go and see his father, he supposed, although he had probably left it too late. He glanced at his watch and realised he had - it had just turned 7 PM which meant that his father would be at bingo with the rest of his social club, as was their Friday activity.

A knock at his door almost induced a heart attack as Marco jumped violently - he had been certain that no one was still in the department as Vista, one of the other doctors, had told him he was the last to leave before heading out.

“Yes?” He called, trying to keep his voice calm as his heart rate started to slow after the shock. He was immensely surprised to see Ace opening the door, looking strained and worried as he entered the small office. “Ace!” He exclaimed, “I didn’t realise you were still here. How’ve you been?”

Ace didn’t reply at first, standing awkwardly with his back leaning against Marco’s bookcase next to the door and not quite meeting his eyes. “Sorry for ignoring you the last couple of weeks,” he said unexpectedly, causing Marco to furrow his brow; he hadn’t realised Ace’s lack of appearance had been intentional. “I don’t like doctors looking at me. It makes me really nervous.” That much had been abundantly clear during their single brief meeting two weeks ago, Marco acknowledged, but he didn’t say anything. “I was too embarrassed to see you afterwards.”

Marco understood the sentiment but couldn’t hope to relate. He considered the psoriasis neither hideous (as Ace had described it) nor something to be embarrassed about, but years of experience told him that people rarely handled their symptoms in a clinical manner as he might.

“I was talking to my dad,” Ace changed the subject in an unusually bitter tone, spitting the words out as if they were vile to taste, “up in his office in the Raftel Building.” That explained why Vista hadn’t mentioned him still being in the department when he had left, Marco realised.

“Aren’t you going to go home with him?” Marco asked, assuming this was a reasonably normal question given that it had to be well and truly past Ace’s normal working hours and that travelling to and from work in the same car was far more economical than going alone, although he admittedly had no idea if Ace lived with Roger or not. Ace’s face twisted into a grimace of loathing and Marco regretted his question immediately.

“I’m not getting in a car with that man,” he said angrily, “I’m not going anywhere near him if I can help it.”

The young man’s attitude was alarming to say the least, and Marco suddenly felt completely out of his depth with him. He didn’t know what to say or do, settling with a pathetic, “oh, OK then,” in order to fill the silence.

He had never heard anyone speak about Roger Gold like this with such venom, and given that Marco’s knowledge of the man beyond his title was limited to what he had seen in meetings with the rest of the medical division, he had extremely little to go on.

Ace seemed to realise the position he had put the doctor in as he met his eyes at last, his features relaxing as he stared into cobalt blue, shame written across his face.

“Sorry,” he said in a rush, “you don’t need to know my family problems. Why are you here so late?” He was obviously grasping for something else to talk about and Marco was certain this was not why he had come to look for him so late in the day.

“I was finishing up going through my emails,” Marco said, leaning back in his chair as it creaked a little at the change in position, “and weighing up my options for the night.”

“Yeah? What’ve you gone for?”

“Well, I’m torn between going home and getting drunk to Netflix, or getting drunk in a bar and then going home and passing out to Netflix,” Marco said easily, figuring there was no harm in being honest with this man. If it had been one of the secretaries or one of his doctor colleagues he wasn’t particularly close with then he would have lied and made up something far more eloquent.

There was no point lying to Ace; he had no reason to want the other man to think well of him, given that he was sure to be leaving the department soon and they were neither fellow doctors nor had a proper patient and doctor relationship.

Ace looked slightly taken aback by Marco’s honesty. “What about your wife?”

Marco snorted at the assumption. “I’m not married.” He held up his left hand and wiggled his fingers, proving the lack of a wedding band.

“Girlfriend?”

Marco actually laughed at this one. He hadn’t had a girlfriend since he was a teenager, and that had ended in utter disaster. “Nope, completely single and not interested.” Ace looked puzzled and Marco took the opportunity to divert the topic away from his ruin of a love life. “Are you up to anything fun tonight? Going out somewhere, maybe? Feel free to sit down, by the way; you don’t have to hover by the door, I’m not _that_ scary.”

Ace shook his head as he took the empty seat in the room that people - usually Nami - used when they wanted to speak to Marco. “I’m not doing anything interesting,” he said, hands clasped tight in his lap as he looked nervous again, “just going home.”

That tiny flicker of concern ignited within Marco again as he studied Ace’s face, the young man’s expression pained again. Marco wasn’t sure if it would be appropriate to ask if things were OK at home, not when they hardly knew each other. It was one thing to admit to planning on drinking himself to sleep and quite another to pry into Ace’s private life. So he changed the topic, hoping it to be one they could discuss easily.

Marco was very wrong.

“So how did you get on with the steroid cream?” He asked, genuinely interested. “Did it clear up the psoriasis?”

He knew he had said the wrong thing immediately as Ace’s shoulders stiffened and his head ducked, looking at his hands. Had he made a mistake? Had he prescribed him something that had actually made it worse? Marco had been sure he’d prescribed the right medication for the condition, he hadn’t had any doubts at the time, and panic stabbed at his stomach as he watched Ace intently. Dermatology would have an absolute field day if Ace got referred to them and they found out a cardiologist had got to their patient first and made things exponentially worse with his meddling.

But then Ace put him out of his short-lived misery with a nod. “Yeah, it cleared it up, all right.” But Marco knew there was more to that sentence, and as a doctor he needed to know what it was.

“But?” He prompted. Ace frowned and his freckled cheeks colored.

It took several tense moments for him to answer, his hands fidgeting in his lap as he clearly worked himself up to answering the doctor, but he finally answered.

“The patches you saw are almost completely gone,” he began, brow furrowed deeply, “but… more keep appearing. They won’t stop. Every day there are more new ones and so I used the cream on them, but the next day there’s more and more and I ran out of cream a few days ago because they just seem to be multiplying and I don’t know what to do.”

He looked up at last, eyes desperate and searching Marco’s face for an answer, embarrassment at his condition evident in his flushed cheeks. Sympathy and concern twinged Marco’s heart and he had to stop himself from reaching out to the man. In this moment he was a patient again, and Marco was a professional.

This was unusual; Marco knew enough about the condition to know that much, but he thought he knew the cause, at least.

“You mentioned last time that you were under a lot of stress,” Marco said, amazed at himself for remembering this; Ace had not in fact confirmed this verbally, if he remembered correctly, but his face had said it all. “Is that stress ongoing? Are things getting worse?”

Ace nodded and, to Marco’s horror, he sniffed and his eyes welled up with tears.

“She won’t get better,” he said, his voice trembling as he wiped furiously at his eyes. “My mother’s sick and Dad doesn’t care. He won’t do anything for her and he just leaves her in pain, not giving a shit that she’s suffering so long as he can carry on being the CEO of this fucking place. He has no time for her, he won’t even tell anyone that she’s ill and he made me swear I wouldn’t bring it up. How could I not?”

Ace laughed weakly, tears breaking free and dribbling down his cheeks despite his continued wiping of his hands to his eyes. “How could I lie to you and make up something bad enough to make this stupid condition not get better? I thought that was why they wouldn’t go away but I- that’s why I-”

Marco wheeled closer and put a hand to Ace’s arm despite himself. He understood. This was why Ace hadn’t asked for help in the first place and why he hadn’t come back to Marco when the patches of fiercely red skin didn’t stop appearing. Marco found it impossible to believe that Roger Gold would neglect his wife to the extent that Ace was describing, but whatever was happening it was enough to make the young man physically react this powerfully.

“Can I ask,” Marco said quietly, gripping Ace’s arm a little tighter to try and reassure him, “what’s wrong with your mother?”

“She has cancer,” Ace gasped, fresh tears spilling down his cheeks as Marco twisted behind himself to grab a packet of tissues from his briefcase and offer them to Ace, who took one gratefully. “It started in the large intestine and she had surgery to remove some of the intestine, but it came back. She had more surgery but then it came back _again_. She’s had chemotherapy and radiotherapy and they left her so sick. They’ve told her it’s back again now and they can’t do anything else for her. She’s in a hospice and my dad won’t go and see her. He _never_ sees her. She gets mad if I go to her every day - like, _really_ mad - so I can’t go today. She says she wants me to live my life and to enjoy myself instead of spending all my free time with her. I went to ask Dad to go and see her for once and he kicked off, yelling at me about how I haven’t thought about how this is affecting him - I don’t care how it’s affecting him!” Ace suddenly looked furious, “how can I care about him when she’s dying?”

Ace’s flow of dialogue came to an abrupt halt as Marco hugged him tightly, going against his professional instinct and holding his colleague close, patting his dark hair as whatever had been holding Ace back snapped and he gripped the back of Marco’s shirt in response, crying in earnest into his shoulder.

Now was not the time to tell Ace that his father most likely very much required love and support, that Roger was most certainly not staying away from his wife out of disinterest or a lack of love. Ace didn’t need to hear about how people dealt with grief in very different ways. He just needed an outlet for the misery he must have kept to himself for an incredibly long time, a shoulder to cry on until he had no more tears left, someone to comfort him when he was so vulnerable.

Marco would be as good as anyone else in that moment, he figured.

He held Ace for a long time, stroking his hair and hushing him quietly long after the tears subsided and Ace’s shoulders stopped shaking. Marco vaguely wondered how long it had been since the guy had told anyone about this or if he even had someone to comfort him through it, like a partner or a close friend. The way Ace had spilled everything to him, an almost complete stranger, made Marco guess that this was not the case, which, if true, spoke volumes of Ace’s loneliness when he needed someone the most.

“If you’re not doing anything tonight,” Marco said quietly, “you’re more than welcome to join me for a bad takeout and probably equally bad films, y’know. I have a guest room if you want to stay over, too.”

Marco didn’t want Ace to be alone like this if he could help it.

Ace finally pulled away gently, wiping at his eyes a final time with the tissue still clutched in one hand as he sat back into the chair and huffed a small laugh. “You hardly know me,” he said, sounding amused despite himself, “and I’m not going to be good company. Why would you want me around?”

Marco shrugged. “Don’t all friendships start with neither knowing the other well?” He asked enigmatically, smiling as Ace laughed lightly. “C’mon, we can be bad company together. I’ll even bore you to sleep with pictures of my cats.”

“You have cats?” Ace asked, brightening up a little as he stood, watching Marco as he powered down his computer and collected up his briefcase.

“Yeah, two. You like cats?”

Ace smiled warmly. “I love them.”

And that seemed to settle the matter. To their mutual surprise, Ace accepted Marco’s offer and they were soon in his car - it turned out that Ace lived close enough to the hospital to walk in every day - and speeding away to a night of drinks, food, and conversation, Netflix all but forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, this is a tough one. I am SO nervous about posting this one.
> 
> Writing about losing family to cancer is never going to be easy and I hope I do the topic justice. Rouge deserves all the happiness in the world and here I am, giving her the exact opposite.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a truly wondrous feeling, waking up and knowing he wasn’t alone in the apartment, Marco concluded the next morning. He wasn’t alone at home for the first time in… how long had it been since Thatch last fell asleep on the couch? Even though he was very much on his own in his king-sized bed, Marco could hear the faint rumbling of snores coming through the wall from the guest room. He smiled to himself, allowing a moment to just listen to another person be so close by before he rolled out of bed.

Ace really had ended up going home with him, and they had had far more fun than Marco had anticipated they would.

They had picked up plenty of alcohol on the way back, Ace jumping out of the car and darting into the shop they pulled up alongside, and Marco had ordered pizza from his phone as he waited for his new friend to get back. They had eaten together at Marco’s glass-top table in his large modern kitchen, Ace revealing that he was actually a pretty disgusting dinner guest while munching through twice the amount that Marco managed before looking to the kitchen wistfully for something else to snack on.

They had talked about everything and nothing for hours as they drank, Ace eventually relaxing enough to get down on the floor to play with Marco’s two beautiful Maine Coon cats, Dusk and Dawn, when they wandered over for attention, Ace positively squeaking with delight when he discovered that Dawn was perfectly happy for him to rub his face into her soft, fluffy tummy.

And there they both were now, charcoal-black Dusk curled up on Ace’s chest, soft gray-tabby Dawn sprawled out across his belly, both rising and falling with the young man’s gentle breathing. Marco leaned against the doorway of his spare bedroom for a long moment, watching the happy sight of the three of them sleeping so peacefully in the mid-morning sun that streamed through the gap in the curtains.

It really was _nice_ having someone else there. It gave Marco a reason to actually get up and face the day rather than lie in bed and contemplate life and all it’s meanings yet again.

He hummed to himself as he showered quickly, noting the lack of a hangover for perhaps the first time in at least a year, maybe more, this free Saturday morning. He had drank less than he usually did on a Friday night that didn’t require him to go anywhere the next morning, pacing himself better as he talked with Ace rather than necking bottle after bottle in his quest for oblivion.

Marco pulled on a pair of loose black gym pants over underwear after his shower, pausing as he weighed up going topless (as he often did when alone) before deciding against it and pulling on a blue tank top that did absolutely nothing to hide his muscular shoulders and arms but did cover up the tattoo on his chest that so very few people knew of.

He padded barefooted into his kitchen, tugging open the fridge door and pulling out a carton of eggs, milk, butter, and some bacon and setting them on the counter. He realised that he didn’t know what Ace liked to eat other than pizza, but judging by how much he had drank the night before he would be in need of some serious hangover food.

Marco had never had a guest get so merry that they rolled around on his living room floor with the cats completely shamelessly, and it had honestly been a nice change of pace. Ace had called them his princesses as he had kissed Dusk’s back and Dawn’s belly repeatedly. Marco chuckled at the memory of the man making a fool of himself, happy that he had cheered up after the misery he had shown at work.

Marco felt _good._

Ace, however, did not.

He awoke to the smell of bacon cooking, rising from his sleep like a zombie coming back to life, groan and all, upright before he was really aware of what was going on. Dusk jumped gracefully from his chest as her warm bed sat up, Dawn slipping sleepily off him and to his side before rearranging herself comfortably against his thigh. Ace looked from Dawn to Dusk, who had jumped to the floor with a chirp, and blinked blearily at them.

“Morning, ladies,” he said thickly, his mouth dry and head dull with fog. He looked around and spotted a glass of water and two Aspirin on the night stand which he gratefully snatched up and swallowed in one, wiping at his chin where a little had spilled in his haste.

Ace took a moment to look around the room as he blinked, slowly but surely remembering where he was and why. The room was reasonably large, light, and airy, painted a soft pale blue with a built-in closet into the wall opposite the window. He sat in an incredibly comfortable double bed with fresh cream colored satin sheets, and from his position he could see through the open door into the short corridor that led to the living room and kitchen.

He was in Marco’s - the cardiologist’s - home, and it was Marco that he could hear whistling to himself over the sizzle of bacon frying. Ace’s heart squeezed with shame as the memory of crying into the doctor’s shirt slammed into his mind’s eye in perfect clarity, followed immediately by the image of himself laughing at Dawn the cat while mimicking her upside-down position on her back.

On the floor.

On Marco’s living room floor while he watched.

What the hell was wrong with him?

Ace swung his legs out of the bed reluctantly, sad to leave it’s comfort and Dawn, who was lounging calmly on top of the sheets. He glanced down at himself and looked away again instantly, the ever present red marks on his skin making him loathe the sight of his body. He didn’t care if it was a common condition or if Marco had seen a billion cases of it in his life - Ace thought it was disgusting.

He grabbed up his work shirt from the floor where he had thrown it and pulled it on, buttoning it up and lamenting not having anything else to wear; he felt ridiculous as he pulled his work pants on as well, thankful that Drunk Ace had not removed his boxers the night before, being sensible for once and keeping them on.

Scratching Dawn’s ears and stooping to pet Dusk before he left the room, Ace padded down the corridor slowly towards the promise of food.

“Morning!” Marco said cheerfully, positively beaming at Ace as he winced; he felt delicate, to say the least. “Ah, sorry,” Marco said more quietly, grinning as Ace took a seat at the large glass-top table, “how’s your head doing?”

“About as well as you’d imagine,” Ace said dully, running his fingers through his hair and feeling gross all over. “Thanks for the water and pills.”

“No problem. Are you up for some breakfast? I’m nearly ready to dish up.” Ace’s eyes lit up expectantly and Marco could not wipe the smile off his face no matter how hard he tried. “Do you like scrambled eggs? Bacon?”

“Is the pope Catholic?”

“And how about beans? Toast? I don’t have any mushrooms or sausages otherwise I’d do those for you too, sorry.”

“So it’s more of a Half English than a Full English fry up?” Ace smiled, watching Marco’s back as he busied himself with dishing out the food onto a plate at the counter, chuckling. Ace’s eyes slid over the doctor’s muscular physique, appreciating the well-defined shoulders and biceps that his crisp work shirts normally hid so well. “Kinda surprised you’d advocate frying stuff, though, what with being a heart specialist and everything.”

“Moderation’s the key to happiness,” Marco said sagely, glancing over his shoulder at his guest, “having something like this once in a while won’t do you any lasting harm.”

Ace honestly didn’t care if it killed him on the spot in that moment as Marco set down a plate brimming with his breakfast, handing him a knife and fork too. Ace set to work at once, uttering a rushed word of thanks as he dug in almost frantically.

“I noticed last night too, but you really do pull some interesting expressions when you’re presented with food,” Marco said as he poured them both a coffee, handing one to Ace.

“Ah love eet,” Ace managed around a huge mouthful of toast and egg, earning a snort of mingled amusement and disgust from Marco in response.

Marco didn’t add that he was impressed that Ace managed to stay so in shape - he could clearly remember the abs the younger man had sported when he had examined the psoriasis - and guessed it was down to a combination of being blessed with a fast metabolism and many, _many_ hours spent at the gym.

Pulling a chair out from under the table opposite Ace, Marco sat down with a bacon sandwich and his cup of coffee. Ace looked incredulously from the offensive sandwich to Marco’s face, swallowed hard, and said, “that’s all you’re having?”

Marco huffed a laugh. “Yeah, this is a lot for me. I don’t get hungry in the mornings.”

Ace gaped at Marco as if he had just announced he didn’t need air to survive. “How? I’m hungry all the time.”

And he went right back to eating as if he had starved for a week; Marco chuckled and took a bite of his own breakfast.

What Ace didn’t voice was his amazement at the fact that Marco had cooked for him. Just him. Granted, it wasn’t a difficult meal to throw together, but he had done it with the sole intention of making sure Ace ate well. Something in Ace’s chest sparked into life at this thought and he felt warm all of a sudden.

“How did you sleep?” Marco asked as Ace cleared his plate in record time, grabbing for the coffee and taking a sip. “I hope the cats didn’t harass you too much?”

Dusk appeared right on cue, wrapping around Ace’s legs with a purr and making him jump slightly. He reached down and petted her soft head as Dawn wandered over too, sliding up alongside her sister and sniffing excitedly at Ace’s fingers.

“They were fine,” Ace said happily, giving Dawn some attention too, “I think they slept on me all night. They were there when I fell asleep and there when I woke up, at least.”

Marco’s smile grew broader as he rested his stubbly chin in his palm, his food forgotten as he watched Ace’s elated expression when Dusk cheekily jumped up onto his lap, nose in the air as she sniffed for scraps.

This was really. Fucking. _Nice_.

“Good. They like it when people come over; they think they can sucker them into giving them treats.”

Ace hummed in thought, deciding whether or not he should pry into his senior colleague’s life more than he had already pushed it. A little more couldn’t hurt, surely? “Do you have people over often?” He asked innocently, holding Dusk back as she noticed Marco’s abandoned sandwich and twitched in its direction.

“No,” Marco said, also noticing Dusk’s interest and picking up the sandwich, taking a bite. He lifted his gaze and met Ace’s, much brighter and focused now that he had filled his alcohol-sodden belly with ample quantities of food and the Aspirin had started to kick in. Ace found he wanted to drop his gaze but couldn’t, staring into deep blue for a long while as Marco chewed, waiting for him impatiently. Ace couldn’t help but feel like Marco was deciding whether to tell him something, but he couldn’t guess as to what.

“Ed - Dr. Thatch - will stay over occasionally if he drinks too much to drive home,” Marco said eventually, “but he hasn’t been over for a while. One of the vascular surgeons I’ve known for years pops in every now and then, and my sister will stay over if she’s in town, but-”

“You have a sister?” Ace looked interested at this bit of information about Marco’s family. “Sorry,” he added quickly, “I just can’t imagine doctors with, like, siblings and parents. No idea why. What’s she like?”

Marco took his phone out of his pocket and flicked through a few photos, finally settling on one and holding it up for Ace to see. In the photo, Marco had his arm around a beautiful woman with long, wavy, platinum-blonde hair that was so white it looked icy silver. She had the same full lips and dark blue eyes as her brother as she smiled at the camera, holding Marco close around the waist at what looked like a wedding, judging by their smart attire and the champagne flutes in both of their free hands.

“Wow,” Ace said softly, drinking in the photo, not only taken in by the woman’s striking beauty but also how handsome Marco looked in his dark gray suit. “She’s beautiful. What’s her name?”

“Whitey.”

Ace’s eyebrows went skyward and the soft feeling that came with looking at the doctor’s family photo disappeared. “You’re telling me your sister is called Whitey White?” he snickered.

Marco laughed, making Dusk jump and leap softly from Ace’s lap. “No, sorry, that’s her nickname. Some teacher she was close with in high school called her Whitey and it stuck ever since. She’s married now and her surname’s Bay, so it isn’t so bad. Her name’s Katrina.”

“Lovely name,” Ace smiled, watching Marco as he flicked through his photos, the warmth in his chest growing.

It shouldn’t have, but it only hit him now that Marco, this doctor who he had hardly known before last night, had a family, a whole life’s worth of history, that he didn’t know about. Marco had not sprung into being as he was before Ace now, a fact that should have been obvious and was logically sound, but Ace had never taken a second to look at any of the doctors he had ever met as _people_ rather than just their titles. They had mainly talked about Ace the night before, or had shared stories about funny patients they had come across; Ace hadn’t asked Marco anything about himself, although admittedly Marco hadn’t seemed in any hurry to share, either.

He found himself wanting to know more.

“Is Whitey a doctor, too?” Ace asked, looking at Marco over the rim of his coffee cup as he took another sip. Marco looked up from his phone at the question.

“No, she’s a sonographer,” Marco replied. He suddenly looked apprehensive, much to Ace’s surprise.

“Oh, so she scans pregnant women’s babies?” Ace couldn’t see what could be wrong with this profession; it sounded really rewarding.

Marco shook his head. “A lot of the midwives do that in her hospital,” he said. “No, she scans for malignancies, mostly in the kidneys and liver.”

Ace was silent, the implication in the word ‘malignancy’ numbing him for a moment as Marco obviously waited for him to react, for Ace to withdraw into himself again and lose his glow.

But he didn’t. Ace’s face instead split into a truly radiant smile, expression soft as he said, “so she helps save people too, huh? I bet your parents are so proud of you both.”

He had stunned Marco speechless, he could see it. He couldn’t deny that talking about cancer in any form was difficult for him, but Ace respected the people who spent their lives diagnosing and treating the condition. They, as far as he was concerned, were perfect, wonderful, irreplaceable individuals who really weren’t appreciated enough for their work.

It was the surgeons who he had no love for and who he blamed for his mother’s fate.

“So, Dr. Thatch comes here to drink, too?” Ace changed the subject fast, having no desire for Marco to see his vulnerability again so soon. “Have you been friends for a long time?”

“Oh,” Marco looked surprised, clearly caught off guard by the sudden shift in topic, “yeah, we went to university together. I’ve known him since we were eighteen; we sat next to each other in our first lecture and have been together ever since. You would not believe the luck we had throughout the years. We were only apart during our junior doctor days.”

“I thought he was older than you,” Ace admitted, grinning, “since he’s more lined right here.” He pointed to his forehead as Marco returned the grin, relaxing back into the conversation.

“That’s what having three kids will do to you,” Marco said fondly. “Has he told you about his girls?”

“I knew their names before I knew his,” Ace said. Thatch had treated Ace to far too many photos of his three daughters - Sophia aged eleven, Bianca aged nine, and Emily aged seven - on his first day working with him, either not noticing or not caring that Ace lost interest after the third photo of the auburn-haired children.

“It’s Emily’s birthday next weekend,” Marco remembered, once again mentally scolding himself for not getting her a card and present yet. “I’ve got to get her something today. What do eight year old girls like?”

Ace shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine,” he said, very glad that he didn’t have to shop for a child’s present, “something pink?”

“She says she’s too cool for pink nowadays.”

Ace grinned, running his fingers through his hair again and reminding himself of how filthy he felt; he always felt gross after drinking.

“Do you mind if I use your shower?” Ace asked as he stretched, groaning a little at the motion. He met Marco’s eyes again and realised exactly what that innocent question entailed. “If that’s all right, of course,” he added shyly, nerves surging out of nowhere at the thought of being naked and exposed and _naked_ in the doctor’s home. Completely naked. Here. Where Marco got naked every single day.

Ace could hear his heartbeat in his ears for a second as his cheeks flushed.

“Sure, there’s a spare towel in the guest room closet you can use,” Marco said, completely oblivious to the route Ace’s brain had taken as he reached over to collect up his plate and cutlery. “Feel free to use whatever you need, there’s shampoo and body wash in there already.”

Ace thanked him and headed to the guest room without another word, locating the towel with ease and sitting on the bed with it clutched in one hand, the other petting Dawn as she followed him in. He would need to keep those kinds of revelations in check from now on.

* * *

Marco drove Ace back home just before midday, shouting down the younger man’s protests and insistences that he would call a taxi so that Marco didn’t have to go out of his way for him, arguing that he needed to head out anyway to get something for Emily’s birthday. Ace had relented, cheeks a furious red as he strapped himself in and let the doctor take him home, not admitting that after seeing Marco’s richly furnished, obviously luxurious apartment he was in no rush to show off the small, far more modest place he rented near the hospital.

Nerves began to settle in for a completely different reason as Marco pulled up and parked just outside the building. Ace decided he would get changed out of yesterday’s work clothes and then drive straight to the hospice his mother was residing in, determined to stay with her until the evening today rather than let her talk him into leaving after barely an hour again.

“Well, thanks for everything,” Ace said, fidgeting with the seatbelt a little more than necessary, delaying the moment when he would have to leave. He glanced up and met Marco’s calm gaze, feeling his chest constricting without warning. “I’ll see you on Monday. Hope you find something nice for Emily.”

A hand to his arm stopped him as he went to open the door - Ace froze and looked back around to the doctor, breath caught in his throat as he saw the expression there. Marco didn’t want him to go either, and he was hiding it badly.

This was a curious development.

Ace leaned back towards him slightly, time feeling like it was slowing as his brain kicked into overdrive, frantically trying to determine what to do in a split second. It was insane - completely and all-consumingly insane - but Ace was momentarily drawn to those slightly parted lips, thought about reaching out a hand to run along the stubbled jawline before him -

He was halted in his internal whirlwind of impulses and confusion as Marco let go of his arm and held his hand out. “Give me your phone for a second,” he said, apparently blissfully unaware of what the other man had been thinking, “I’ll give you my number.”

“Oh, right.”

Ace shoved a hand in his pocket and unlocked his phone as he pulled it out, handing it to Marco and watching him type in his number and save it. He took it back meekly, looking at the number on the screen as his heart raced.

“Feel free to call me if you need someone to offload to or if you want to come see the girls again,” Marco smiled kindly. “I’m free all of next weekend at the moment, but the weekend after I’m away for a conference. You’re going through a lot right now and I want you to know that I’m happy to listen if you need to talk. I doubt there’s anything I can do other than feed you, but I’m here if you need me.”

Ace felt his face burn and his heart clench. He looked at Marco and the question ‘ _why do you care so much?’_ almost left him. He could just about understand why Marco had decided to socialise with him the night before - he had all but admitted himself that he had had no plans, after all - but Ace could not fathom what made his company appealing to the doctor. As far as he was concerned, Marco was way out of his league, the professional gap between them laughably enormous.

Marco seemed to know what he was thinking this time. “I mean it,” he said seriously, “I’m happy to listen if you want to talk. I’m sure you have friends or relatives you’d much rather talk to, but if for any reason you think I can help, I’ll pick up. I’m also happy to talk at work if I’m in the office. I’ll put in a prescription for more of the steroid cream too; you said you’d run out, right?” He was privately impressed that he had remembered that sliver of information.

Ace nodded. “Thanks,” he said, “for being so nice to someone like me. Don’t feel you have to because my dad’s basically your boss, though.”

“I don’t give a damn who your father is,” Marco said, looking genuinely surprised that Ace had brought up Roger.

“Well, thanks all the same,” Ace said, slightly cheered up by Marco’s reaction.

As he watched the sleek silver Mercedes drive away a moment later, Ace felt lost and helpless, confused and wildly conflicted. He was so torn between deleting Marco’s number and never imposing upon him again, on locking away those flutters in his stomach that announced the beginnings of feelings that he knew would not be returned… And between calling Marco immediately, telling him to turn back and do something, _anything_ , to numb the pain of seeing his mother slowly dying once again.

Ace trudged inside slowly, trying to parse the complexity of his conflicting emotions, unaware that Marco was doing almost exactly the same thing as he drove away.

* * *

She looked so small again today, her freckles standing out in stark contrast against her pale skin as she watched him approach, her once beautiful strawberry-blonde hair lying in a plait on her pillow. Rouge’s eyes swam with love as Ace pulled up a chair beside her bed, leaning over to kiss her cheek as she reached out a weak hand to touch the freckles she had passed on to him, fingers delicate against his skin.

“My boy,” Rouge whispered, tone gentle yet tinged with scolding, “haven’t I told you already that you don’t need to come here so often?”

“Tell me once more, as ever,” Ace smiled at her, the expression not quite reaching his eyes. “I missed you, Mom. How have you been?”

He took her raised hand in both of his, clasping it between his palms and lacing his fingers with hers. Affection for his mother always came so easily, so readily, especially now. Rouge squeezed his fingers back in response.

“We had fish for dinner last night,” Rouge said, “with mashed sweet potato. It was really lovely; not a combination I would have thought of myself. And Ines plaited my hair this morning, look - she said that she’d bring in some ribbons from home tomorrow to tie it off with. Won’t that look nice?”

“Yeah, it will,” Ace replied, making a mental note to thank the Dutch nurse for her thoughtfulness when he next saw her.

They sat in silence for a moment, Rouge watching her son with adoration etched into her features as Ace stared at their linked hands, unable to meet her eyes just yet. No matter how often he visited, no matter how long she continued to outlive the oncologist’s original prognosis, the sight of his mother lying in her bed was always a difficult one to take in at first.

Before she had become sick, Rouge had been a passionate woman who fiercely loved her husband and son, always ready to sacrifice anything for them. No ask was too big, no favor was too much, and Rouge had supported Roger throughout his career as he had gained ranks in management, doing the same for Ace when he had become old enough to begin working. She had never wanted anything for herself, her happiness derived from doting on her family.

How had a woman so vibrant and strong-willed ended up here, waiting to die as a shadow of her former self?

“I hope your Friday was more interesting than mine,” Rouge prompted Ace to engage with her, a kind smile on her lips as he looked up at her. She never liked it when he slipped into silence, knowing that he was thinking difficult things and tying himself up in knots inside. “Did you do anything?”

Again, the memory of crying wet and noisy into the cardiologist’s shirt surfaced, and Ace felt guilty for it, not only for imposing on Marco but also for not being strong enough to keep himself together. However terrible he felt would be nothing compared to what Rouge had to be experiencing, facing the very certain possibility of death every time she fell asleep.

“I had dinner with someone from work,” he said, leaving out the part about drinking so much he had treated Marco to a detailed account of how he had broken his elbow at age 19 by tripping over a tree root. It had not been a particularly thrilling or even interesting tale, but Drunk Ace had _really_ wanted to tell Marco about it, for whatever reason drunk people ever did anything.

“Oh?” Rouge suddenly looked more alert, keenly eyeing her son. “Someone nice? Was this your first date? Tell me everything, darling.”

“Jeez, Mom,” Ace laughed gently, patting her hand, “it wasn’t a date. We went back to his and had pizza, that’s all.”

“Who is he? Oh, no,” she looked worried, brows knitting over deep walnut eyes, “it wasn’t that doctor you’re working with, was it? Sweetheart, you said he’s _married_ , you can’t date him.”

Ace couldn’t help laughing; Rouge looked so serious. “Christ, no,” he chuckled, “Dr. Thatch is nice and all, but no. It was one of the other doctors, Dr. White.”

Route hummed as she obviously tried to recall the name. “I don’t think you’ve mentioned him before,” she said slowly, “what’s he like?”

Ace had indeed not mentioned his formal introduction to Marco two weeks prior, nor had he told his mother about the psoriasis covering his chest, abdomen, back, and thighs. He knew she would weed the cause of the red patches out of him and then blame herself profusely, and Ace would not do that to her.

“He’s…” Ace gestured vaguely, casting around for a sufficient way to describe Marco. Ace would privately describe the blond as very caring, a bit forgetful, dedicated, and unexpectedly ridiculously hot… but he certainly wasn’t going to tell Rouge any of that. “He’s interesting,” Ace settled on.

Rouge’s eyes positively twinkled; Ace hadn’t seen her look this excited for months, since before her terminal diagnosis. She looked like her old self again momentarily, her expression reminiscent of a time they would never get back.

“Is he single?” She asked, ignoring how Ace rolled his eyes and groaned. “He must like you if he took you back to his-” She gasped, a soft inhale of breath as her eyes went wide, “oh, Ace,” she looked mortified, “you didn’t _sle_ -”

“Please tell me you have a higher opinion of your only son than that, Mom,” Ace laughed, shaking his head at her. “We had dinner, we drank a bit, I played with his cats and we went to sleep. In separate rooms.”

Rouge actually looked let down, as if she had been tempted with some exciting juicy gossip only to have it snatched away before hearing it. “Well, are you seeing him again?” she asked.

“Yeah, at work on Monday, if he’s around.”

“Darling, you know what I mean. Are you having another date with this Dr. White? He _is_ single, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is, and no, we haven’t arranged anything.” Ace didn’t let his mother in on the internal conflict he felt about Marco; that was trivial in the grand scheme of things, really.

He appreciated Rouge trying to distract him from the sorrow he held because of her ill health, but Ace didn’t enjoy trying to make out like life was wonderful and good while she was not. It felt incredibly disrespectful, regardless of how often Rouge protested that he still needed to enjoy life.

“Well, that is disappointing.”

Ace frowned slightly at her tone, studying Rouge’s face as she blinked at him. The laughter was gone, replaced instead by very obvious sympathy and love. Ace felt his cheeks heating up under that gaze. “How so?” He asked, although he knew where this was going. Rouge always turned their conversations around like this.

“My love,” she said with a sigh, “you have to live your life. Don’t wait for chances to find you; find _them_. You don’t know what is in your future, and this illness has made me look at life differently - no, don’t pull that face,” she said gently, squeezing Ace’s fingers between her own as he opened his mouth to interrupt.

“Mom, please—”

“Let me finish. I wish you could see your life as I do. You must take every chance you can and enjoy yourself. Who knows, maybe this doctor is the one for you? Maybe he’s fallen completely head over heels in love with you already and wants nothing more than to be with you? Maybe he is destined to be just a good friend instead, one who will be there for you when I no longer can? You need people in your life, Ace; surround yourself with as many good, kind people as you can.”

“You say that like I don’t have any friends already,” Ace mumbled, although he was smiling despite himself. “And I think you’re jumping the gun a bit with Marco. It was just some takeout pizza.”

But Rouge had always had a habit of knowing there was more to a story than what her son told her. She simply smiled knowingly at him, letting the subject go.

“I think,” she said, looking to the window at the other end of the room, “I would like to see the gardens. The wild corn flowers are in bloom among the poppies at the moment and they’re simply gorgeous in the sun. Would you be a dear and fetch a wheelchair?”

Ace jumped up at once, leaving the room in search of a nurse to help them as his heart sunk into his stomach. Left unsaid was Rouge’s lack of fight to walk unaided - until Thursday, when he had last seen her, Rouge had been declining the wheelchair when it was offered to her, insisting that she didn’t need it. She had coaxed Ace into taking a turn around the main garden then, clutching his arm the entire way around and stopping for a break at every bench, her shuffling gait uncertain and unconfident.

She was getting markedly weaker by the day, now. He would have to find a way to get Roger there as soon as he could, if it was the last thing he did. They would both regret it for the rest of their lives if he failed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of an interim chapter that leads to more goings-on in chapter 3.
> 
> I wish I had Maine Coon cats...


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning for mentions of past homophobic attitudes from an unnamed patient and unnamed secretaries. 
> 
> Well, here we go. This chapter is twice as long as the previous two. I'm not known for being light with my words, I'm afraid, so please enjoy this wall of text. These darlings are finally starting to figure out what they want from each other...

_You need to go see Mom. She asked for a wheelchair straight away this time. She can barely walk. She’s getting worse._

Roger stared at the brief text from his son, not really taking in the words anymore. This was new. Not the text update - Ace regularly sent them despite also sending threats that he would stop communication entirely if Roger didn’t go to his wife - but Rouge showing any kind of weakness was.

He ran a hand through his thick hair and frowned at his phone. He had typed out a reply to Ace, rewriting and deleting and tapping it out again, but he couldn’t face sending it. Their chat history was almost entirely one-sided, just Ace sending him updates every couple of days and Roger leaving him eternally on read. It always went like this. He always tried to reply, typed out paragraphs of misery, of anger, of heartbreak, before deleting them and remaining silent. Feeding Ace’s belief that Roger did not care.

_How_ could Ace possibly believe that he didn’t care? It was absurd, beyond the realms of reason. Yes, he supposed it didn’t look good, him avoiding Rouge and indeed Ace himself where he could, but could his son not see why? Could he not grasp that the pain of facing the woman he had devoted his entire being to was just too much?

Roger was fully aware that he would regret it for the rest of his days if he did not gather his courage in time. He would never, ever forgive himself if he stayed away until it was too late. Rouge was his everything, she always would be, and this was going to ruin him no matter what he did.

Roger was not a weak man by any stretch of the imagination. Roger was self-assured, was powerful, ambitious, clever and diplomatic. He could talk his way into - and out of - just about any situation. He never gave in. He had led this hospital through financial ruin and into incomparably better times almost single-handedly, taking the helm and attending meetings he was told were too lowly for the CEO, spoke to business partners and lawyers himself that his PA or the executive committee would have normally dealt with. Roger did not shy away from putting himself out there, laying his neck on the line and doing what had to be done.

But this… this was something else entirely. This was where the fierce man’s one single chink in his armour lay.

He knew what he had to do. He _knew_. He just didn’t know how to go about breaking down the barriers he had built up to do so. He didn’t have his son’s courage or his wife’s iron-clad bravery, clearly.

Roger sighed long and hard as his phone went dark, automatically locking after five minutes of inactivity. There was no escaping this. If she really wasn’t even attempting to walk now, then Rouge had taken the first step down her final steep slope. There would be no coming back from it. Not that there had ever been any chance that she would, but when she had continuously persevered through physio, had outlived her original prognosis of a month to five… Well, it gave Roger the blind hope that a miracle would occur and she would get better.

He should have never got her booked into the hospice. It was a fine place, the best that his vast income could afford, and the care she received was leagues better than anything he could have hoped to achieve at home. He had done the right thing for her from a medical point of view, but that had been the point of no return. He had not gone to visit since Ace had driven her there a month ago.

A soft knock on his office door pulled his attention back to the room. “Yes?” he said sharply.

Roger’s PA, a smartly dressed woman with a blonde bob in her late 30s, poked her head around the door. “Mr. Gold,” she addressed him, not faltering under the intense glare she was subjected to, “the board of directors have begun to arrive. I’ve directed them to conference room A. Shall I tell them you’re on your way down?”

Roger heaved a deep sigh and laid his forehead to his clasped fingers, a rare display of fatigue that his PA had indeed never witnessed. She looked at him questioningly, her professional mask slipping a little. “Mr. Gold? Is everything OK?”

“Everything is fantastic,” he said gruffly, raising his head again to meet her eyes. She didn’t know anything about Rouge; Roger strongly suspected that if he told her then she would try to comfort him, and that wasn’t something he could deal with. “I could murder a cup of coffee, though.”

That got rid of her.

Roger unlocked his phone again and read Ace’s last text once more, jaw set as he clenched his teeth. He rose from his chair and strode across the room, pocketing his phone and pulling the door open. He would find a way to change his attitude, he had to, it was absolutely imperative that he did now.

He would bite the bullet and go visit Rouge. Somehow.

On the other side of the hospital site, on the second floor of a smaller building than the one that housed the corporate offices, the cardiology department was alive with activity for once.

The secretaries had decided during that morning’s briefing that they needed to do more together as a team. And what did every team within the hospital enjoy doing more than anything?

“We’re going to the canteen for breakfast,” Nami explained to her bewildered doctor as she stood in the doorway of his office, hand on hip, “as part of our new team building exercise. We’re taking Ace with us too since he nearly started salivating at the mention of breakfast, so do let Dr. Thatch know if he gets here while we’re still out, OK?”

Marco nodded as Nami beamed at him. That explained the raucous noise coming from the secretaries’ office next door to his own. He had never known a group of women to be so devoted to food in all his life.

He bit his tongue as he thought about asking how Ace was that morning, having not seen him yet and never receiving a call or text from him over the weekend. Not that he had actually hoped he would. Of course not. The new prescription of the steroid cream sat in Marco’s briefcase, having been picked up at a pharmacy in town while he was on his errands on Saturday - the perks of keeping his hospital ID on himself at all times.

“Do you want me to bring back anything for you?” Nami asked, grinning as Marco’s eyes lit up. “A nice big cup of caffeine from Starbucks, maybe?”

They were fortunate enough - or unfortunate, depending how you looked at it, Marco supposed - to have a Starbucks in the massive outpatients department in the main hospital building, right en route to the canteen.

“Yeah, please,” he pulled his wallet out of his pants pocket quickly, watching as the rest of the secretaries filed down the corridor past Nami, “just the usual. And put yours on my card too, as thanks.”

Nami’s grin widened; Marco wondered if she, too, had noticed the trend that he offered to pay for her coffee as well whenever she picked up one for him. Smart woman.

Marco’s heart seemed to skip a beat as Ace tried to pass behind Nami as well, bringing up the rear of the line of secretaries. He glanced into Marco’s office and gave him a nod, earning a small wave back from the doctor. Nami’s arm shot out in front of Ace’s chest, stopping him from leaving.

“Look what we got,” she said, waving the credit card that Marco had handed her in Ace’s face. “Marco’s card. Wanna go have fun?”

“I’m _right here_ , Nami.”

Ace laughed at Marco’s raised eyebrow. “You’re brave, trusting her with that.”

“Yup,” Nami’s eyes positively twinkled, “I know his PIN and everything. Oh, the joys of working for a senior physician who isn’t old enough to be my grandfather. You younger ones are always so trusting.”

“I’ll have it back if you’re going to be like that,” Marco played along, quite used to this routine, holding out his hand to her. Nami slipped the card into her pocket with a cheeky grin.

“Marco said he’ll treat the team to breakfast.”

“Seriously?” Ace asked, amazed; Marco bit his lip to stop himself laughing openly at how gullible the young man was.

“Uh, not quite,” he corrected, “Nami’s picking up a coffee for me and getting herself one. Feel free to order something too, if you like.”

Ace’s cheeks colored slightly as Nami reached for the door handle, suddenly noticing that the rest of the team had left without them in their quest for a good breakfast, not waiting for the stragglers.

“Oh,” Marco added before they could leave, Ace’s flush of color reminding him instantly, “I need to see you when you get back, Ace. It won’t take long.”

Nami looked from Marco to Ace quizzically as Ace nodded, the blush deepening. Did he _have_ to do that? Marco was really becoming fond of the pink underlying the freckles.

“See you in a bit,” Nami said, “be good while I’m gone.”

Marco chuckled. “Have fun.”

The door snapped shut and he was left in peace again, the department silent around him save for the ringing of one of the secretary’s phones on the other side of the wall.

* * *

Ace was quiet as they headed over to the canteen, he and Nami soon catching up with the others as they strode after them. Nami and Marco’s teasing exchange kept replaying in his mind. He had known that almost all of the doctors and surgeons within the hospital had a great working relationship with their secretaries - management always did their best to match a doctor with a secretary who was of a similar personality to them, after all.

He had also known, had he not, that Marco and Nami got on particularly well? Had he not seen them together many, many times before the day he was introduced to Marco? Seen the way Nami would tease him and he would play along? Or the way she spoke so casually to him? This bothered Ace and he couldn’t quite label why, couldn’t quite dispel the way Marco tended to grin so fondly at Nami from his memory.

At least working in cardiology was proving to be a solid distraction from his mother, as he had hoped it would be… except maybe for very different reasons to what he had imagined.

He munched on his breakfast in silence as he brooded and let his imagination take him to dark places. He had let his stomach do the choosing rather than his brain and had ordered a huge helping of waffles with syrup and blueberries; the women had made a fuss of his choice, voicing their envy that he could plow his way through such a sugary meal without having to worry.

He looked up at Nami, who was sat opposite him, and watched her as she laughed at something that Miranda, Dr. Thatch’s secretary, said. Marco had said he was single, and he knew Nami to be single, too. He also knew Nami to enjoy the luxuries of life, never one to shy away from splashing her cash on things that took her fancy. Now that he thought about it, a doctor would be well placed to fund a lavish lifestyle…

“What’s got you pulling a face like that?” Nami asked quietly, smiling at Ace as he blinked at her.

“Face like what?” he asked.

Nami gave him her signature knowing grin. “You look like your waffles have offended you or something. What’s up?”

Embarrassment set in as he suddenly felt thankful that they were seated at the end of the long table. “Oh,” he said feebly, dropping his gaze back down to his plate, “just thinking about Dr. White, that’s all.” Nami immediately looked intense, her interest well and truly piqued. Ace’s mind caught up too slowly, taking a second to realise what he had said and how it must have sounded.

“Oh, really?” Nami said, leaning in closer as Ace fumbled for words. “What about him, particularly? I know _loads_ about him so I’ll give you the dirt.”

“Well, that’s just it,” Ace mumbled, poking at a blueberry with his fork, “I was thinking about how you two get on so well, and…” he trailed off, frowning, deciding how to voice his barely half-formed thoughts. He looked up into Nami’s questioning face and blurted out inelegantly, “you call him by his first name.”

Nami leaned back in her chair and laughed, long and loud, gaining the attention of her colleagues. Ace was mortified as they looked from the laughing redhead to his flaming cheeks, trying to work out what on earth was going on.

“Oh, _dude_ ,” Nami said, chuckling, “yeah, I do, because I’ve worked for him for years and I consider him my friend, that’s all. And he’s _Marco_ , he’s so laid back he’s almost horizontal, for goodness’ sake. I think he’d drop dead of shock if I called him Dr. White. Oh honey, did you think I have a thing for him? Or he has a thing for me?”

“Who’s got a thing for who now?” Miranda asked.

Nami giggled at Ace’s silently pleading eyes, begging her not to tell. “Ace thinks me and Marco want to get it on,” she said, betraying him.

“I don’t!” Ace lied as the other women laughed or cooed at him, temper flaring, “I was just asking—”

“Nami is _so_ not Marco’s type,” one of the younger secretaries, Vivi, grinned at Ace, leaning forward to look down the table at him, “she’s lacking a, um, certain something that he would require.”

“And he’s not mine, either,” Nami snorted, “no offence to him, he’s lovely, but—”

“But he’s a _doctor_ ,” Ace stressed the word as if doctors were an entirely different species to them, “and we’re just normal people. Isn’t it weird for us to be so—”

“Hey,” Nami cut him off, her eyes betraying the faintest hint of sympathy for her wound up co-worker, “he’s a normal guy too. All doctors are. They’re just people like you and me, except they’re super interested in one thing and have taken that interest as far as they can. Don’t go inflating their egos anymore than necessary, they have patients to do that for them.”

“Yeah,” Vivi agreed, “you should hear them, Ace. ‘Oh, please tell Dr. Rose that he’s my hero, he’s like an angel to me’. They’re so sweet, but the docs really do get arrogant if they know.”

Ace returned his attention to his waffles, ramming them into his mouth with such aggression that Nami looked pained as he ate. He felt so stupid. He himself had spent time with Marco as just two regular people, not as doctor and admin support, and it had been fun and natural. No, that wasn’t what had been bothering Ace, and that wasn’t what he had meant to say, not really. Sure, he did have trouble wrapping his mind around the fact that the doctors weren’t some kind of deities to worship and tiptoe around, but he wasn’t ignorant of the fact that they could get on well with people from different roles.

“Right,” Miranda chimed in, “you should listen to Ed when he gets going on his fishing. I have never heard anything more boringly normal in my life. It’s so much easier if you don’t think of them as cardiologists and just think of them as guys who like to do boring guy stuff. Seriously.”

Mentioning Thatch triggered something in Ace’s memory. “It’s his daughter’s birthday soon,” he said before he could stop himself, “Marco doesn’t know what to get for her.” The women fell silent, Nami and Miranda goggling at him. He looked from one to the other, confused by their looks of surprise. “What?”

“When did he tell you that?” Nami asked, eyebrows raised, “he text me on Saturday asking for help after he spent ages wandering around a toy store. That was the first I’d heard about it.” Left unsaid was why would Marco confess something like this to someone he was only supposed to know in the context of prescribing medicine for a couple of weeks ago.

Ace leaned back in his chair, no longer hunching over his now empty plate, suddenly feeling very undeservedly smug. “He mentioned it in passing.”

Nami wrinkled her nose in disbelief. “Really? You usually have to ask him really specific questions to get anything personal out of him. Either that or happen to be the first woman to respond to his panicked texts, apparently.”

“Ah, did he ask his sister, too?”

Nami balked. “How do you know about _her_?”

Ace grinned at her, the smugness breaking out onto his face. “He mentioned it. In passing.”

* * *

Thatch, much to Marco’s amazement, strolled into the department not too long after the hoard of secretaries and Ace had left, meaning he was in early for once.

Marco himself was always ridiculously early, often the first in the department just after 7 AM with a coffee ready in his metal travel mug. He liked the peace and quiet of the department when he was alone; the same could not be said about Thatch, who enjoyed taking breaks and gossiping with the secretaries at random intervals throughout the day.

The state of their desks said all that was needed about how they functioned as individuals - Marco’s was clear of paper and ornaments, save for a single photograph of his cats pinned to the wall beside him, whereas Thatch’s keyboard frequently threatened to go missing under the landslide of paperwork he permanently had covering his desk. No wonder Miranda frequently got migraines.

“Yep,” Marco heard Thatch say, presumably on the phone, as he jingled his keys outside his office door, “I know sweetie, I know, Daddy will be home on time tonight. Yes, I promise. No, Daddy’s at work now, Daddy can’t— can’t you ask Mommy to do it? No, Emily, no, don’t take the phone to her if she’s in the shower—”

Marco chuckled to himself as Thatch tried to keep the exasperation out of his voice as he talked to his youngest daughter. He loved listening to the conversations Thatch would have with his family, missing having trivial chats like that of his own with a loved one. Whitey wasn’t one for phone calls, and his father would get confused when using the telephone.

“Oh, Marco?”

Thatch had heard him, popping his head around his door; Marco had forgot to close it properly after putting a piece of paperwork on Nami’s desk for when she came back.

“Yes, Uncle Marco’s here Emily, do you want to say hello?” Thatch smiled encouragingly at Marco as he held the phone out to him, silently pleading with him to take it when Marco shook his head and leaned away from the phone. Conversations with the children that called him their uncle could be long and meandering, and he never knew how to end the conversation without upsetting them.

“Hi, Emily,” he said in a brightly cheerful tone, taking the phone that was thrust into his hand, “how are you? Not long until the big day, is it?”

“Nope!” Emily chirped down the phone, “I’m going to be eight on Saturday, Uncle Marco! _Eight!_ ”

“Wow, already?” Marco said, wheeling his chair into the middle of his office to watch Thatch flounder with his office door key in the corridor, “that’s gone by so quickly. I remember when you were just a tiny baby straight out of your mommy.”

Marco, as Thatch’s best friend to the point of being like a brother, had indeed gone to visit Fiona in hospital when she had had each of the girls. He’d been a constant in all of their lives, always there for birthdays, joining the family for Christmas for the last two years, and generally being a good uncle to the three girls wherever he could. He’d even done the school runs when Thatch had been abroad for last year’s worldwide cardiology conference (having been delegated the duty of attending as their hospital’s representative) and Fiona had been giving a morning lecture at the city’s university.

“I’m not a baby anymore,” Emily’s pride was obvious through the phone, “Daddy said he’d get me my own phone now.”

“That’s so grown up, Emily.”

“Yeah!” Emily paused, listening to someone else in the background. Marco waited, recognising the tone as belonging to Fiona; she must have finished in the shower and discovered her daughter on her phone again. “Uncle Marco?”

“I’m still here.”

“Are you definitely coming on Saturday?”

Marco frowned. Saturday? Emily’s birthday. Had he agreed to see her on her actual birthday? No, not that he could recall, but that didn’t prove anything. He couldn’t check for certain as his diary was still at home, dammit, open on the kitchen table where he’d left it the night before, most likely underneath one of the cats by now - their smudgy pawprints on the glass table top were all the evidence he needed to know what they got up to when he wasn’t there.

“Of course I am,” he improvised, having no idea what he was agreeing to, “if you’d like me to, of course.”

“Yeah, I would! But I’ve gotta go now, Mommy’s yelling for her phone back. Bye-bye!”

Marco couldn’t help smiling as Emily hung up, watching the call disconnect on the screen.

He had told Ace he was free that weekend, he remembered too late. Because he _had_ been free.

“Ed,” he called, frowning at his friend’s phone, “what’s Emily doing on her birthday?”

Thatch strode into the office looking harassed, his tie in hand and halfway through knotting it. Getting in early clearly didn’t suit him at all.

“We’re taking the girls to an amusement park,” Thatch said, taking back his phone as Marco handed it to him, “and then she’s having a party with her school friends at the ice rink on Sunday. Why? Did she just ask you to come along?”

“More like she phrased it as if I’d already agreed to it. I remembered too late that it was new information.”

Thatch chuckled. “Smart girl. She wants her favorite uncle there and she knows how to go about booking him. You agreed, I assume?”

Marco shrugged, sighing. “I didn’t want to make her think I’d forgotten. But it’s fine, it’ll be good fun. I’m not doing anything else.” The words stung as he said them, hanging bitter in his throat as he thought of Ace. He had been mulling over a half-baked idea of asking the young man round again, or maybe out for dinner somewhere. He hadn’t got past the point of figuring out how to stress that it wasn’t intended as a date, just a way to take Ace’s mind off his difficult home life for an evening.

Thatch hummed, unconvinced, as he pulled his tie loose and started on it again. “Don’t feel you have to, though. She can’t go getting her way all the time, the little madam.”

“She can for her birthday,” Marco smiled, “really, it’s fine, I’d love to. If that’s all good with you two.”

“Oh, definitely,” Thatch said, “another pair of eyes to watch the girls is always welcome, you know that. Plus, you can take them on the rides that Fiona and I won’t touch.”

“Ah, so that was the plan all along, huh?”

Thatch grinned at his best friend. “You got me, mate.”

Voices at the entrance of the corridor pulled the doctors’ attention outside, Thatch leaning out of the doorway to see what was going on.

“It’s a stampede of secretaries!” he gasped comically, covering his mouth with his palm in mock horror.

“Good morning to you too, Ed,” Miranda said dryly as she passed him.

“Where have you all been? It’s nearly 9 AM, ladies - oh, and Ace too. Good. Come join me in my study, young man, and allow me to show you the progress I made on that infernal spreadsheet over the weekend.”

Marco groaned as Thatch left, shutting the door to his office and leaving him alone again. He had wanted to speak to Ace before he had to go to a meeting with one of the respiratory doctors at 10, but if Thatch really got into the swing of things then he wouldn’t get the chance. He had clinic that afternoon, and the meeting with Alec would likely take them to lunch time as they had a veritable mountain of mutual patients to discuss.

He nearly sustained another heart attack as his door swung open again, making Marco jump violently in his seat.

“Here’s your coffee!” Nami said brightly, setting the cup on Marco’s desk, not missing his reaction to her entry, “one massive latte, full to the brim with caffeine and certain to keep you awake for the rest of your life.”

“Thanks for that,” Marco said, taking his card back as Nami handed it to him, “I’ll let you know if I have to admit myself with palpitations, all right?”

“Sure thing,” Nami grinned, the joke a standard one that they made almost every time Marco had a Starbucks coffee, “I’ve got the arrhythmia nurses up on the ward on speed dial, so keep an eye on your pulse.”

Laughing lightly at the familiar response, Marco picked up his coffee and took a sip.

Nami remained stood in the office doorway, eyeing him with an unusual expression on her face and looking like she very much wanted to say something. Marco raised an eyebrow at her, waiting for her to speak, but nothing came. Odd. Nami was never usually one to be quiet around him, always keen to fill him in on the latest departmental gossip or tell him about her weekend, whatever took her fancy, and Marco was always ready to listen. So to have her look at him with such searching interest was… odd. Yes, that was the best way to describe it.

“Everything all right?” Marco prompted, not breaking eye contact with his secretary.

Nami hummed in thought, clearly weighing up her response before delivering it, leaving Marco ignorant through the dragging seconds as she pondered. Finally, as if choosing her words carefully, she said, “are you friends with Ace outside of work? Because he said something at breakfast that made me think maybe you two…”

Marco’s stomach clenched and his head swam momentarily in that all too familiar panic response, the primal part of his brain demanding that he shut the conversation down and _run._ It was an innocent question posed by someone he trusted, _really_ trusted with his personal information, but would she see it the same way as he did? There was every possibility that upon learning that Ace had gone back to Marco’s, Nami, who had never set foot in Marco’s apartment or ever socialised with him outside of work nights out with the rest of the team, would spread the gossip like wild fire, the story twisting and taking on a life of its own as it was embellished and elaborated upon.

The thought scared him. Flashes of memory raced through his mind as he looked up into her kind eyes, remembering his previous secretary from back before Nami had started, remembering how he had thought nothing of clarifying for her that the partner he lived with back then had been another man. How she had taken that exciting bit of gossip about her doctor back to the others. How the stares had started, how the comments of ‘such a waste’ had been made when they hadn’t realised he was there…

And when somehow, out of nowhere, rumours surfaced about himself and Law, of all the people in the hospital they could have picked. Law, his good friend, his long time colleague, his professional go-to for all surgical referrals and queries. One of the secretaries had apparently spotted them out for a drink one weekend and assumed too much, making quick work of spreading the discovery.

And then someone had brainlessly decided to divulge that bit of information to a male patient, the worst possible kind of male patient that could have ever learned that their cardiologist was gay. It should have been insignificant information; no tests or procedures he ever carried out in clinic were invasive, not to mention he always had a healthcare assistant present in the room, and really, did it matter? Was it in any way remotely relevant? The complaints team had thought so, honoring the patient’s demands to have their care swapped to another doctor. Thatch had refused to take them on when asked, but one of the others picked them up when pressured.

And now everyone - except Ace, apparently, judging by his previous assumption that Marco had a wife - in the department knew, and perhaps it went even further to spread to the whole medical division. Maybe even the entire surgical division, too.

But it shouldn’t _matter_ , shouldn’t be a topic of gossip like some kind of grand reveal at a show, and as Marco studied Nami’s expression for a second he knew in his heart that she was one of the people who didn’t think it was of importance. She had been told about him when she joined the team; he knew because she had asked him to lay the rumours and gossip to rest and give her the truth. Bold. Accepting.

And yet…

He couldn’t run the risk of something so harmless turning into a topic of interest, warping into a scandal and potentially hurting Ace, never mind himself.

Despite the fact that if he was honest, he wouldn’t mind getting to know Ace in the way that his colleagues might conclude he already did.

“No,” he said after a slight pause, swallowing back the nausea of the past and focusing on the conversation, “I’m not friends with Ace.” It hurt to say that, like he was putting to bed any possibility of them actually going somewhere with this. Why did he always have to hurt? “What did he say?”

“He knows about Whitey,” Nami said, “which struck me as strange. I haven’t heard you talk about her for a while. And he knew you had been stressing over Emily’s present, but I’ve never known the two of you to talk, really. So I was just wondering if maybe you guys had secretly hit it off, or something.”

Damn Nami for picking up on things. Damn her for not letting said things slide. A wry smile tugged at the corner of Marco’s mouth as he figured that it was traits like these that made her the best secretary he’d ever had.

He couldn’t say anything to reveal Ace’s reasons for coming to him in the first place - Marco was certain that no one else in the team knew about Ace’s family circumstances. So he would have to do the one thing he hated doing to people who he cared about - lie.

“Nami, really, are you jealous that I talk to people beside you?” He grinned easily at her. “It’s not a crime, you know, to mention one’s sister to a co-worker.”

Nami looked a little taken aback, the beginnings of shame showing on her pretty face. “I know,” she said, her cheeks tinged strawberry, “but I didn’t think you two had ever—”

“And you know he practically lives in Ed’s office when he’s around,” Marco interrupted smoothly, a flutter of remorse for the redhead tickling in his chest at her evident discomfort, “Ed must have told him about my panic over Emily’s present. I think you’re reading into this too much.”

It was the easiest way to protect himself, protect Ace, from any potential backlash and gossip. Or maybe he himself was thinking too much about an outcome that may not come to pass. Maybe he had no right to be lying to Nami.

Yep, he was really thinking about this way too much.

“I was only asking,” Nami huffed, folding her arms, “you don’t need to be so defensive.”

Yes, actually, he did. Maybe. Probably not.

“Um…”

An uncertain voice behind Nami made her step out of the way, revealing Ace to the pair. He looked distinctly wrong-footed, like he had heard something that he shouldn’t have and had been caught while doing so, which was probably exactly what had happened.

“You said you wanted to see me,” Ace mumbled, not quite meeting Marco’s eyes, “and Dr. Thatch is done showing me his spreadsheets, but I can come back later if you two are busy.”

Marco could practically _feel_ his heart swell at the sight of Ace. This was not good. He was getting attached far too quickly despite himself, despite his raging internal conflict on what to do. He was being pulled both ways, half of him screaming to just get to know the young man better and maybe finally have someone in his life who wasn’t Thatch or his family, and the other half reminding him of the past and the hold that everything still had over him.

Continued friendship could lead to ugly rumours.

Dating could lead to even worse rumours, not to mention dragging up other parts of the past that Marco would really rather leave untouched. Assuming, of course, that Ace was even remotely inclined towards him.

Marco sighed. He was too old for this nonsense.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, trying to keep his voice warm as Ace finally looked at him, soft gray meeting cobalt blue, “come in. And Nami,” he nodded to her, the warmth in his voice spreading to his smile, trying his best to convey to her that all was well, “thanks again for the coffee. I’ll try and catch you before clinic this afternoon, OK?”

Nami did not look like she was ready for their conversation to be shut down so abruptly, but she recognised the dismissal and left, touching Ace on the arm briefly as she passed. She shut the office door softly, leaving the two alone.

Ace hesitated, as if working himself up to something, reminding Marco strikingly of before they had got to know each other better. Again, that spark of concern ignited within the doctor and flickered to life, larger than before, Ace and his struggles now starting to become more and more significant to him despite the conflict he felt.

“I picked up more steroid cream, as promised,” Marco said, relieving Ace of the task of speaking first. He reached down into his open briefcase and plucked up the box, the tube clattering inside it. “Let me know straight away when you run out this time; pharmacies won’t dispense it in large quantities so I can’t get much at a time, so make sure you let me know.”

Ace took the box from him gratefully, his fingers brushing Marco’s in the process. Marco’s stomach felt like it was flipping at the light contact and made him yearn for more.

He couldn’t help it, his heart ruling over his brain despite the internal struggle he had been going through since dropping Ace off on that past Saturday morning, despite the new added panic of not wanting to risk bringing anything to the attention of their co-workers. Marco was exhausted, fed up of feeling like a teenager again.

“Thanks,” Ace said, pocketing the medication, “I will.”

They smiled at each other for a moment, the silence hanging awkward as both held back from bringing up what they really wanted to talk about. Marco gestured to the spare seat, inviting Ace to sit down, as he took another sip of his coffee. Ace sat with a sigh, leaning forwards to rest his elbows on his knees, eyeing Marco with interest instead of his previous obvious discomfort when in the doctor’s office.

“I’m sorry I didn’t text you,” Ace said, surprising Marco, “I wanted to, I just didn’t know what to say.”

“That’s fine, don’t feel you have to,” Marco assured him quickly, glad that Ace had at least thought about it, that he hadn’t made a mistake. “Did you visit your mother on Saturday? How is she?”

Ace’s eyes brightened, alert and on edge in an instant. “She…” he hesitated, clearly casting around for the right words. “She was both good and bad.”

“Oh?”

“She was really interested in our Friday night,” Ace smiled at the memory of Rouge being so excited, reading between the lines and seeing what Ace had began to hope would someday come to light, if he could ever be that lucky, “I’ve not seen her that animated for a long time. You’d think I’d told her I was engaged or something, the way she carried on about it.”

Marco smiled, glad to hear something positive about Ace’s mother’s situation. However - “and the bad part?”

Ace’s face fell a little, the sadness creeping in again. “She’s getting weaker,” he said quietly, dropping his gaze and looking at his hands, “she’s the type of person who would struggle through anything and insist she was all right, no matter what. That’s why it took so long for her to get diagnosed in the first place, because she ignored her symptoms and didn’t tell me or Dad that something wasn’t right.”

“She sounds very strong-willed and selfless,” Marco said, wheeling his chair closer to Ace, tissues at the ready in his briefcase should Ace need them.

Ace nodded. “She hates worrying anyone,” he said, tone soft, “so she hides her pain. So when she asked for a wheelchair to go out and see the gardens…” he took a deep breath, exhaling slowly before continuing, “she’s a fighter, y’know? She must be really bad to not even try and pretend she could walk that distance.”

Marco understood this, had seen it in the elderly and frail, in the sickest of his patients throughout the years. They were always so resilient, the strongest of character and the most caring of those around them, often not concerned with themselves anymore and only looking to appear fine to their loved ones. He would never forget his brief spell in the ER as a junior doctor, working a night shift when a young man had come in after being hit by a car, suffering major organ damage. The bravery the man had shown, jaw locked to refuse his definite pain from escaping in his voice, no fear in him as he had slipped under the pull of the morphine, never to resurface.

People could be so incredible in the face of adversity.

“Will you see her again after work today?” Marco asked, remembering how Ace said he would try to see his mother every other day where possible. But Ace shook his head.

“No, not tonight,” he said, looking saddened and very much like this was against his wishes, “her parents - my grandparents - see her on a Monday and she’s usually too tired for me after they leave. She struggles with too many visitors at once - it overwhelms her - otherwise I’d take the day off and go with them.”

Ace looked up from his hands, eyes intense and staring deep into Marco’s own. Marco, to his own astonishment, felt his cheeks heating up under that gaze. He raised his coffee to his lips again to distract himself from that realisation.

“So I was hoping,” Ace continued, his voice a little harder, a little more assertive, “that I could take you up on your offer and see you again tonight. If you’re not busy, of course.”

Ace smiled at the way Marco’s eyes widened, the doctor clearly not expecting this. He didn’t know where this assertiveness was coming from, but he far preferred it over the nervous, fidgety young man he had first met nearly three weeks ago.

“Sure,” he said, his mouth dry all of a sudden despite the coffee, responding on impulse as rational thought poked at his mind, reminding him of the raging inner turmoil he had gone through just minutes beforehand. He hadn’t expected an offer from Ace at all, caught completely off guard by it. “I’m free. I won’t finish up here until around 6, though. You go home before that, right?” Ace nodded. “I can pick you up from your apartment after I leave, if you like. What do you want to do?”

Ace hummed in thought. “I was thinking of going out for dinner. There’s a really nice place that does this amazing steak just outside of town,” he said, drumming his fingers on his chin, “or there’s Bill’s nearer to your area - they do these incredible enchiladas with _so much cheese_ you could drown in it, or—”

Marco chuckled as Ace reeled off more and more good restaurants, his knowledge of their menus revealing just how much he enjoyed food. It was endearing, really, watching him perk up so quickly after talking about his mother. Marco only wished that there was something he could do to take away Ace’s pain altogether, to somehow wave a magic wand and make Rouge all better again.

He knew what it felt like to watch a loved one suffer, and he wished there was some way to help Ace through this other than keeping him company.

“We’ll go wherever you want,” Marco said, grinning at Ace’s excitement, “but that first place does sound good.”

Ace grinned at him. “Great, I can’t _wait_ ,” he said eagerly, “you’ll love it, I’ll bet. I last went there with a group from the gym and they couldn’t stop raving about it afterwards.”

Marco glanced at his watch as he raised his cup to drain the last of his coffee, noting with a start that it was getting close to 10. But talking to Ace was so nice, so comfortable, that he really didn’t want to leave just yet.

Marco listened happily as Ace told him all about his group of friends at the gym he visited, knowing full well he would forget the names of Zoro, Sanji, Franky and Brook within the next ten minutes but loving hearing Ace chatting so casually again. The young man warmed him, made him feel relaxed and open to the possibility of this becoming a regular thing.

His worries were washed away in the face of actually being in Ace’s company, his brain frantically working to rationalise that this could be done, that their friendship could be kept separate from their work life with a little forward thinking. He would just have to be careful this time, keep everything limited to himself and possibly Thatch instead of brazenly believing that nothing could possibly go wrong.

Marco hoped that Alec didn’t mind waiting ten minutes or so for him.

* * *

Ace was a bag of jittery nerves by the time he actually thought to text Marco that evening, recalling far too late into the day that the doctor didn’t actually have his number and thus wouldn’t be able to contact him if he forgot where he lived. Ace pinged him a short message to let him know who it was and that he was ready whenever Marco happened to arrive.

He stood in front of his mirror, trying to smooth down his hair yet again. The thick locks simply did not want to lie flat, curling out at the tips and making his appearance more unruly than he wanted.

He couldn’t believe he had actually done it. He had successfully asked out Marco the cardiologist on a date. Rouge would be so proud of him.

_No, not a date_ , he mentally snapped at himself, frowning at his reflection, _Marco won’t see it like that. This is just two people from work having a meal. Just like he does with Dr. Thatch. Just like I do with the guys._

But it wasn’t, or at least Ace very much hoped it wasn’t.

He had spent the weekend fumbling through a hurricane of mixed emotions, switching from silent sadness and hot, feverish panic over his mother’s deteriorating condition to nervous excitement followed by sickening guilt when thinking about Marco.

Ace liked him; there were no two ways about it, no way he could pretend he wasn’t enticed by the doctor’s kindness and compassion, and equally no way he could forget how attractive he was. Ace had thought about those defined arms and shoulders late on the Sunday night, what with Saturday being filled with worry for Rouge. He had let his imagination wonder extensively, going further to picture firm abs and solid pectorals above him, against him, soft skin against his lips as he had writhed beneath his bed covers, gasping sharp as he brought himself to orgasm.

It had taken Ace all kinds of willpower to look Marco in the eye first thing that Monday morning.

And now here he was, struggling into a pair of tight black jeans that made his ass look incredible, if he did say so himself, bouncing up and down on the spot as he pulled them up over his muscular thighs. Damn Sanji for insisting that leg day was as important as arm day.

Ace snatched up his phone as it buzzed, heart leaping with nerves and excitement as he read Marco’s text: _here_.

Ace looked at his reflection again as he wriggled a foot into his first shoe. “Calm,” he told himself seriously, “stay calm. Don’t be an idiot. Relax. It’s just two guys getting dinner after work.” And then his face split into a huge grin, unable to help himself.

“Chill, chill, stay extra chill,” he muttered as he got his second shoe on and grabbed up his keys, wallet, and phone, shoving the latter two in his pocket and opening the front door, “no eating like a horse, no Luffy stories, no dumb shit.” He had to make a good impression, had to try and overwrite the nonsense he had demonstrated when drunk last Friday, such as meowing at Dusk and Dawn.

Good grief.

Ace’s stomach was alive with butterflies as he exited the building and saw the silver Mercedes sat waiting for him on the curb. He hurried round to the passenger side and slid in, slightly breathless as he smiled at his da— at Marco.

“Gray really suits you,” Marco said as Ace strapped himself in, eyeing the smart shirt that he had changed into, “matches your eyes.”

Ah, so maybe Marco did consider this a date after all; Ace didn’t think he had ever complimented one of his male friends on their appearance. The closest they ever got was refraining from insulting each other. Ace positively vibrated with nerves, willing himself to stay _calm_.

They arrived at the restaurant quickly, the work rush hour thankfully over, and parked up easily. A young waitress seated them, giggling nervously when Marco thanked her with a smile. She didn’t see the dark look Ace shot at her back as she left with their drinks order.

“I’ve never been here,” Marco said, looking around happily at the rustic design, “it’s really nice. How did you first find it?”

Ace barely stopped himself from uttering the phrase ‘me and the boys found it while cruising’, grappling for a more eloquent way of putting it. Man, he had not been on a date in a long time, his etiquette was all but gone. “My friends from the gym and I were really hungry after an extended HIIT session one day,” he said, mirroring Marco’s relaxed posture and dropping his chin into his palm, “so we drove around and happened upon this place. I think we ate our entire salary’s worth, it was so good.”

Marco chuckled. “So do you go to the gym a lot?” he asked, “I’m guessing you must do if you have such a good group of friends there.”

“Yeah, we go five times a week,” Ace replied, “we usually do three hours a day, so I spend a lot of time with them. They’re great guys, they work around my schedule with Mom and everything.”

Marco looked impressed, his gaze momentarily dropping to the front of Ace’s shirt, presumably picturing the hard muscles hidden underneath, Ace noted somewhat smugly. “That’s a lot of time spent in the gym,” Marco said, “is it your main hobby?”

“It’s my _only_ hobby. I’d ideally go every day, but then I’d have less time for errands and for Mom.”

Marco hummed, eyeing Ace. They dropped into silence for a long moment, Marco continuing to simply watch the younger man with a small smile on his lips. Ace stared around the room, watching the other diners with little interest, feeling that cool blue gaze upon him.

“So what’s it like, working for Ed?”

Ace blinked back to Marco, heart thumping as he was pinned by that relaxed gaze. He didn’t really want to talk about work. “It’s not too bad,” he admitted, “he himself isn’t actually a problem. All the secretaries warned me about him when I started, saying he was chaotic and difficult, but he’s been fine, considering all the stuff he has to do.”

Marco’s smile broadened. “He’d be happy to hear that.”

They were interrupted by the waitress bringing their drinks over and asking if they were ready to order. Ace, somehow, hadn’t even looked at the menu yet.

“Give us another five minutes,” he heard Marco say as he busied himself with the menu, frowning as that damn giggle left the woman again.

Ace’s stomach growled as he looked at everything on offer, wanting it all and having no idea how to choose. Was it impolite to order a starter, main, and a dessert? He had no idea, but he wanted all three. But what if they ended up back at Marco’s, or back at his, and one thing led to another and he was expected to perform on a bulging stomach?

Ace’s cheeks flamed red behind the menu, thankful that he had stood it up so that it hid him from Marco’s view. That wouldn’t happen. Definitely not. It was too soon, and _this was not a date_. And besides, the odds of Marco actually being into men were very slim, despite what he hoped, Ace reminded himself with a frown.

Would it be weird to ask him outright? Yes, Ace scolded himself immediately, yes, that would be creepy and very weird.

They ordered when the waitress came back, fluttering her false lashes at Marco and returning Ace’s haughty stare as she took their choices. Ace felt really proud of himself for not ordering a starter, deciding to err on the side of caution and not stuff himself stupid no matter how insistently the cheesy garlic bread starter had called to him.

“OK then,” Ace piped up, sipping his foamy beer and setting it back down, “question time. Where are you originally from? Your accent’s not local, after all.”

“I relocated up here from a tiny little town you won’t have heard of from right down south,” Marco smiled, “I grew up near the sea but did my training in the capital, so I guess my accent’s a mixed bag, really. I don’t even know anymore.”

“So how did you end up in this city, of all places?”

Marco shrugged. “I qualified and so was looking to take a job wherever one was offered, no matter where in the country,” he replied. “Two cardiologist posts came up here at the same time, so Ed and I applied, saying it would be hilarious if we got them and ended up together again. You should have seen our faces when we were both offered the positions. That night was the most drunk I’ve ever seen him, including his wedding day.”

Ace took another deep gulp of his beer, setting it down again as Marco snorted at him. “What?”

Marco leaned over the table towards him, reaching out and gently swiping his thumb along the top of Ace’s lip. “You’ve given yourself a beer moustache,” he grinned, eyes narrowing with his smile as Ace’s own went wide. He sat back in his chair and, to Ace’s numb shock, raised his thumb to his own mouth and licked the foam that clung to it right off.

_Holy shit_. That image would be recalled later tonight, Ace was certain.

And that, strangely, seemed to be all Ace needed to relax him properly, finding it easier to talk to Marco as they slipped into conversation about their mutual favorite series on Netflix that had just received a third season. Ace was so engrossed in their conversation that he hardly even felt excited as their food was brought to the table, his enormous slab of steak and fries bringing him less joy than watching Marco laugh at something he said.

Ace ate slowly for a change instead of munching through everything at his usual pace, taking his time as Marco did and stealing glances up at him whenever he dared. He really was handsome - the neatly shaped stubbly beard along his jawline, his blond undercut, his full lips that must feel divine to kiss… Ace felt scruffy in comparison, aware that his hair probably needed a trim and that his freckles lent him a childish charm, not a manly edge.

He realised too late that Marco was looking at him questioningly, had caught him staring at him vacantly. “Is there something on my face?” he asked, raising an eyebrow as Ace gathered himself.

“Hm? No, no, I was just…” Just what? Ace couldn’t finish the sentence. _Just thinking about kissing you, don’t worry_. No. He filled the silence with the last of his steak, barely tasting it as he felt Marco watching him now instead.

“You were staring at me all slack-jawed.”

“No, I was just…” Ace repeated uselessly.

Marco grinned at him, a grin that Ace hadn’t seen before on the doctor. One laced with a hint of hunger, hunger for _him_ , a look that he hadn’t been subjected to by anyone for quite some time. It made him want to squirm under that gaze but he held fast, heart beating, waiting for Marco to say something.

“Has anyone ever told you,” Marco said in a low voice, leaning in closer to Ace over the table, that grin still in place, “that you’re really bad at lying? You blush all under your freckles.”

Ace spluttered, fumbling momentarily for words, “I’m not- I wasn’t-”

“And I think it’s really cute.”

Ace shut up. The air seemed to hang thicker between them, heavy with expectation.

Surely not. Surely there was no possible way that Marco, that Cardiologist Marco, could think that someone like him was in any way desirable. OK, sure, Ace was aware he had a nice body thanks to how much he enjoyed the gym - he had worn these jeans specifically to show that off, dammit - and he thought his face wasn’t too bad, but seriously? He was just a nobody.

Ace licked his lips nervously, searching for a good response to something like that but only coming up with blatantly inappropriate private thoughts that were really better off staying private.

He was spared the burden of responding, though, as their waitress popped up again, chirping, “are you ready to see the desserts menu?”

* * *

They drove back to Ace’s apartment building in comfortable silence. Marco had paid, casually waving away Ace’s card as he had tried to split the bill, giving the blushing, giggling waitress a really rather generous tip that had Ace glowering at her.

Ace’s heart hammered against his ribs as Marco killed the engine of the Mercedes, his expression half-hidden in the dark of the late evening. Ace wanted to kiss him. That fleeting impulse he had felt last time he had been dropped off at home had grown, swelled, multiplied and expanded within him, wanting nothing more than to seize Marco by the front of his shirt and devour him.

And yet Ace made no such move. He couldn’t, frozen in place as his mind went right back to overthinking. It would be a disservice to Rouge, enjoying himself so thoroughly right now. It could backfire spectacularly; he could have read Marco wrong and then destroy this friendship and their professional relationship, however minimal it may be. He’d probably be too embarrassed to see Marco at work again and would request he was moved to a different department prematurely to his work finishing up in cardiology.

And yet…

_And yet…_

Marco was looking at him, silent, waiting, and Ace was sure he could hear his heart slamming into his rib cage.

“Thanks for this evening,” Ace ventured tentatively, breaking the swelling silence, “it was really kind of you to pay.”

“No,” Marco said, his voice low and quiet, “thank _you_ for inviting me. I was worried about you after Saturday, so it was nice to see you so happy today.”

Ace felt warmth flood his chest at these words. He wanted to kiss Marco _so_ badly.

He shuddered as Marco laid a palm to his knee, turning in his seat slightly to look at Ace properly, and Ace was certain his heart was going to burst out of him like that scene from Alien that had terrified him as a child.

Marco seemed to hesitate, blinking as he thought, and Ace waited for him. Waited for him to move his palm from his knee to his cheek, or his chin, or to cup between his thighs, if Marco so wished, Ace would take anything. But Marco seemed lost for words, unsure what to do. Ace could see his chest rising and falling under his work shirt, breathing a little quicker than would be standard, belying his state of mind. It gave rise to a sense of boldness within Ace, the flicker of flame lashing at the restraint of his self-control—

“Well, then,” Marco said in the split second before Ace decided to act, stopping him, patting his knee awkwardly, “I’ll see you tomorrow. Text me if you need anything at all.”

He needed _him_ , Ace thought as he reluctantly said goodnight and slipped from the car, once again watching the doctor drive away with a heaviness in his heart and, this time, a tightness in his jeans to accompany it. Damn. It.

He wandered into the building, mind reeling yet again with thoughts of the cardiologist and what could have happened, what he should have made happen, yet also feeling a little bit glad that he had not acted. Ace thought of Rouge again, guilt gripping his stomach as he unlocked his front door. She would be thrilled if he ended up dating Marco properly, he knew with complete certainty, but he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that to do so would be some kind of betrayal of her suffering, the emotion complex and difficult to work out.

But it didn’t matter, he sighed as he realised, it didn’t matter either way. Nothing had happened. He would see what tomorrow brought… after he took care of the problem in his pants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We had a gay male doctor in my department, who has since relocated, before I moved there. How do I know he was gay? Because the only things I've ever been told about him are "he was so hot" and "it's such a shame he's gay". It's a sad fact that even nowadays it's apparently such a shocker for (some) people aged 30+ to find out someone is gay. Just... get over it, seriously.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just something I forgot to note in previous chapters: I'm not American, and this fic is written from my own understandings of the hospital I work in. I've never worked in cardiology, but I do work in the medical division that cardiology comes under. So if some things don't align with your knowledge of how hospitals work, please keep in mind this is based off how they run and are organised in my country. I've tried to use American terminology where I think not doing so would potentially cause confusion, such as calling Marco a physician - in my country, his title would be consultant cardiologist. 
> 
> And now let's kick off this chapter with a little something to make the fic finally live up to it's Explicit rating, shall we? ;)

Marco couldn’t sleep. He lay on his back, staring at the black ceiling, his eyelids heavy but brain whirling with incessant activity.

He had called Ace cute.

Ace, his colleague, a man who was in no way small or demure or dainty… Cute.

To his face.

Marco groaned, palms covering his eyes as the memory of Ace’s surprised expression filled his mind. What had he been thinking?

But that was an easy question to answer. Marco had been thinking about how much he enjoyed Ace’s company in that moment, sitting with him in that busy restaurant and being so normal with him. How easy it had been, how right it had felt, being there with him.

And how he had thought it appropriate to reach out and run the pad of his thumb over Ace’s top lip, bringing the beer foam to his own tongue…

Marco sighed into the silence of the bedroom. Ace had felt good to touch, so soft in that fleeting second of contact. It had been too long since he had last felt someone’s lips and been warmed by the sensation of their skin to his own.

His out of town one night stands since his ex had been full of regret, nothing more than seeking out another person’s comfort and heat for a few hours before turning cold to their insistences of another round, or offers to swap numbers and do it again some time. Marco cringed when they kissed him, the smell of the alcohol on their breath suffocating him and threatening to kill the moment every time. He hated the mere thought of a hookup, sick of himself every time he went to bed with a stranger from a bar, despising giving in to his base need for sex, if only occasionally, while his heart wanted nothing but to hold someone dear to him.

That someone had always, without fail, taken the form of his ex partner. Marco would demand total darkness to make it easier to imagine he wasn’t entwined with someone whose name he didn’t know, or was inches deep into another who he would never see again.

But now, as he curled his fingers around his half-hard cock, it was not Shanks whose name Marco groaned.

“ _Ace_.”

His touch was light, teasing, working over himself almost delicately to help give rise to the rapidly building tension within him. This, he could cope with. This was private, for himself only, not to be put out there in the open to be judged like calling the young man _cute_. Ace would never, ever need to know about this.

Marco rolled his hips up into his hold, sighing into the increased friction. What would it be like to fuck Ace? No wait, not fuck, that was too carnal - to have sex with? To make love to? Marco snickered at this last thought despite himself. Whatever he called it, it would probably be immeasurably satisfying.

He would start gentle, deliberately not touching Ace’s hard, aching cock in favor of fingering him open slowly, so _slowly_. He’d revel in the feeling of the drag and pull of those warm walls squeezing his fingers so tightly, not curling them in search of Ace’s prostate, not yet, not too soon, losing himself in the gasping sounds the younger man would definitely be making.

Marco’s breath hitched, imagination running wild, and he could almost _feel_ Ace around the fingers stroking along his erection, gripping tighter and pumping a little faster along the forbidden path his thoughts were taking him.

Ace would moan as Marco bit into the insides of his thighs, tight muscles flexing under the skin against his tongue, leaving bruises to the freckles that surely had to pepper his skin there too. He would mark him up, cover him entirely, rival the psoriasis that still plagued Ace’s torso and chest. And oh, that chest…

Marco’s hand sped up as he groaned. His tongue flickered across his top lip, wanting to taste the nipple that he imagined sucking between his teeth when he moved up Ace’s stunning body. Ace would press down on his fingers and up into his lips, crying for more, for his dick to be touched, but Marco wouldn’t give it to him. Instead he would finally crook his three fingers back in on themselves, stroking and pressing and rubbing against that smooth bump under the anterior wall within Ace, and Ace would _writhe_ , breathless, shuddering as he was subjected continuously to pleasure unlike any he had felt before.

He was close, dangerously close, and so was Ace within his mind, the man leaking precum all over his washboard abs as he cried Marco’s name. Marco would not relent, fingers working so smoothly inside him, feeling the pulse and swell of that tiny organ at his fingertips as he kissed Ace. Ace’s mouth would be so hot, so willing, so needy, his tongue wet against Marco’s as he spasmed into orgasm, intense, harsh, ripping through him with such force that he would see stars behind the curtain of his closed eyelids.

“Shit, _ah, Ace—_ ”

Marco would milk his prostate, pulling all manner of sobs and pleadings from him, grinning wickedly when Ace finally realised he had come dry. They’d slip straight into round two, Marco sucking that dripping head between his lips before—

Marco’s hips twitched up, exhaling sharply as he came hard into his fist, imagination in overdrive; he swore he could feel the heavy press of Ace’s cock against his tongue in that moment.

He lay in near silence, his breathing the only sound in the room as he slowly came down from his high. That had been intense and new. Marco had not thought about Ace like that before. He rolled to his side and grabbed up a tissue from the box on the night stand, wiping up the mess on his stomach and chest.

And several miles away, in the heart of the city not far from the hospital, the real Ace actually was moaning Marco’s name into his pillow, also letting his thoughts wander freely all over the doctor’s naked, sweat-streaked body.

* * *

Marco couldn’t help but feel thankful that he was out of the office all day on Tuesday. Facing Ace would have been a real challenge for him after thinking of him so intimately the night before.

Guilt had wrung the doctor dry afterwards - he was getting too caught up too quickly, Ace was vulnerable at the moment, and he certainly didn’t need some man who was nineteen years his senior lusting after him right now, even if it was in secret.

Jesus, when had he got so old? Was he really already 43? Where had the time gone? He had qualified at 37, almost 38, had been the baby of the department when he joined, but now Dr. Cornelia Spade had taken that title from him after joining the team earlier in the year at age 38. Five years younger than Marco and Thatch.

Five years…

Marco allowed his mind to wander, staring blankly at the ECG reading he was meant to be giving a senior opinion on. It was normal as far as he could tell anyway, struggling to figure out why the junior doctors here on the ward were having such a hard time with it. Maybe they were brand new. When had the last rotation been?

Christ, he needed to focus.

But that was proving hard as his mind went right back to thinking about the events of five years ago. Back when Shanks had still lived with him. Before everything had changed and Marco had slipped into depending a little too much on alcohol to help him sleep.

To help him forget.

But when he was around Ace he _was_ able to forget. He was able to put it to rest and entertain the prospect of being happy again, of taking care of someone else, of putting them and their struggles before his own ghosts. Everyone alive had struggles and difficulties of some description - Ace’s were just very present and very concentrated, in a way. Like all the sadness he would ever experience was going to be concentrated into one event in his life, much like what Marco figured had happened to him.

If he ever believed in such supernatural nonsense, of course.

Marco was pulled from his deep thoughts as a small, vein-knotted hand was placed over the back of his own, and he blinked rapidly to look into the face of one of his elderly patients. And, thankfully, she was one of the few who he knew well enough to remember the name of.

“Gloria!” he said happily, genuinely pleased to see the face of such a lovely lady.

“Dr. White,” she smiled at him, raising her arms to give him a hug; Marco was careful not to knock the cannula in the back of her hand as he stooped to give her a quick hug. Marco generally avoided patient contact unless it was part of his investigations, but for the elderly he - and most all doctors - would make an exception if they instigated it.

“I would say it’s nice to see you, but,” Marco looked around the busy cardiology ward from his spot at the nurses’ station, “I’d be much happier running into you at a fancy coffee shop instead. What’s happened?”

He hadn’t seen the tiny 80-year-old woman for a few months now, and last he had known she had had a TIA - a mini stroke - but was recovering extremely well from it.

“My dear boy,” Gloria said, patting Marco’s hand fondly, “I was admitted to that ward just upstairs yesterday morning. The… oh, what was it called? The nurse called it something funny…”

“AMIA?” Marco guessed, and Gloria nodded. AMIA stood for Acute Medical Initial Assessment and was the place where a lot of cardiac patients were first admitted to before being moved to the CCU, the Cardiac Care Unit, where they were.

“That’s it, yes,” Gloria nodded, “yes, you see, I had a heart attack, or at least my husband _thought_ I’d had a heart attack, and so I was brought to hospital by two very nice young gentlemen in an ambulance from my local doctor’s after we saw her. But dear, I think I was rude to them, I didn’t say thank you for their help.”

This was what he liked about her, what made her stick out from the rest. Selfless, sweet, and wholly unconcerned about her health in general, being far more invested in taking care of her husband with Parkinson’s disease. She had tried to chat with Marco during an angioplasty he had performed on her some years ago, asking about his cats and how work was going, but the conversation had been a struggle due to the sedation. She’d tried anyway.

“You had a heart attack?” Marco asked, frowning, worried.

Marco was on the ward round that morning, meaning he would assess each patient on the ward individually with his team of junior doctors, the registrar, and nurses. All of the cardiologists (and all doctors and surgeons in all specialities) took it in turns to take ward round. It was due to begin within the next half an hour, so he would have found out about Gloria then anyway.

“Yes, dear,” Gloria said, “I thought something was funny so I went to my local doctor, Dr. Burke - she’s so lovely, a real addition to the surgery - and she said it sounded like a heart attack and that I needed to go to the hospital with the paramedics. Well, you can imagine my surprise when she told me that; I thought my husband was just being dramatic! And so the first person I thought of was you, obviously, but a different cardiologist assessed me yesterday. A big fellow with a moustache.”

“Dr. Rose?” Marco asked, thinking of Vista.

“Yes, that was it. When I asked for you he told me you would be down here this morning, so I’ve been awake since 6 AM waiting for you.”

Marco felt flattered as he looked into her sweet beaming face, but said, “you should be resting, not waiting up for me, Gloria.”

She sighed, but the smile didn’t fade from her face. “Yes, that’s what the nurse kept telling me,” she looked at one of the nurses busying herself with a patient nearby, a middle-aged woman with a severe face, and frowned a little. “I told her I felt fine and she needed to stop worrying, I wanted to see my nice boy before I have my shower, thank you very much.”

Marco chuckled and patted her hand. “Well, I’m glad I got to see you, but I would be a lot happier if you were to relax in bed for a while. Heart attacks are serious things.”

Gloria hummed in agreement. “I learned last night that they’re called myocardial infarctions,” she said with an air of pride, “isn’t that interesting?”

Marco thought of Gloria and her amazingly upbeat approach to life for the rest of the day, checking in on her again before he finished on the ward around midday and left for lunch. Her heart attack hadn’t been a particularly severe one, it transpired when Marco read her notes, and if her tests came back as satisfactory then she would be able to go home within a couple of days. Marco sincerely hoped they had someone to rely on to look after her husband in her absence.

“Don’t you dare,” Thatch shot at him as they ate lunch together on a bench outside, the early summer sunshine too nice to pass up, “don’t even think of offering to check in with that patient’s husband. You’ll earn a reputation and they’ll all want you.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Marco snapped, taking a bite from his sandwich, “I’m just concerned, that’s all. I can’t remember if they have children or if they live nearby or anything. I just know her and a bit about the husband.”

He had thought about emailing the Parkinson’s disease specialist nurse in the neurology department to ask whether she was aware that one of her patients was potentially left without care while Gloria was in hospital, but he had realised he didn’t even know the gentleman’s name. That would be just a touch too embarrassing to deal with _\- ‘hello, one of your patients might need some support for a few days, not sure who he is but yeah just a heads up’._ Even Marco could see how that would go down. And he was confident that Gloria herself wouldn’t want to trouble the young nurse…

“Yeah, well, leave it that way,” Thatch said warningly, “you can’t save them all, Marco. Just stick to looking after the ones that come through your door.”

Marco, of course, immediately thought of Ace.

“I will,” he said quietly.

His afternoon was a wild blur of giving a half an hour presentation on cardiology as a whole to university nursing students from the local college, getting caught up talking to an HCA - healthcare assistant - who wanted advice about her father, and heading to the cath lab to supervise his registrar performing a routine angioplasty that ended up being trickier than they thought and needed him to step in and salvage. Really, if he was honest, he should have urged the reg to persevere for longer before he offered to step in, and he would probably get a telling off for it from the Head of Medicine when he found out, but Marco was soft-hearted and fond of this reg.

All in all, Marco could easily say he preferred his office and clinic days to this.

However, the perks of days like this were that he got to leave earlier, and so when 4 PM rolled around he got into his car in the staff car park and shut the door to the outside world, sighing into the peace and quiet. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, checked it for the first time since Thatch had called him to meet for lunch, and saw a text waiting for him. His heart leapt when he unlocked the phone and saw it to be from Ace, sent half an hour ago.

_Hope you’re ok. Didn’t see you round the office. Dinner didn’t make you sick, did it?_

Hope you’re OK…

Marco’s face split into a grin, beaming at his phone like an idiot as he took in the words again and again. Ace had been thinking about him. Ace hoped he was OK. He’d been keeping an eye out for him. Marco felt like he was about to combust with happiness over such a short, simple text.

He text back:

_I’m good, was on the ward in the morning then had loads of other stuff to do. Tuesdays are busy days. Back in tomorrow but clinic in the morning. You ok?_

He barely refrained from adding an X to the end of the message, catching himself before he sent it.

Nami could have easily told Ace of Marco’s whereabouts at just about any given time in the day, since she had all of his appointments saved in his shared calendar. She could have given Ace a summary of the day and he would have had no reason to text. But he hadn’t asked Nami. He’d gone straight to Marco himself because he wanted to be in contact with him, Marco could only assume. And even something that simple warmed the doctor’s heart just that little bit more, made him push the guilt and the memories and the thoughts from the morning back a little further into the corner of his mind.

Marco nearly dropped his phone when it buzzed mere seconds later, holding it up to read Ace’s speedy reply:

_Glad you’re not sick! I’m driving to mom in a bit then gym after. Catch you tomorrow :)_

Marco wanted to frame that smiley and look at it forever.

Cute. _Cute_. Ace was so very, very cute.

Movement outside the car caught Marco’s attention, pulling it away from his phone screen. He looked up to see a man passing in front of him, and he recognised him in an instant - that moustache and those eyebrows could be spotted anywhere.

Roger Gold, the CEO, Ace’s father, strode past, completely unaware of Marco staring at him in amazement. Marco hadn’t seen Roger in person for a while, never really having any need to meet with him personally, and he was fairly confident that Roger would not recognise him if he noticed him.

Roger looked strangely harassed and drawn, Marco thought, more tense than he remembered seeing him. He watched with interest as Roger stopped beside his own car not too far away and unlocked it, but he froze with his hand on the handle and seemed to pause. Marco frowned to himself as the seconds slipped by and Roger remained as he was, appearing to simply gaze at his own reflection in the expensive car’s tinted window.

Just as Marco was contemplating getting out and asking if he was all right, Roger straightened up, locked the car again, and strode back the way he had come, looking downright furious and intimidating. Marco sank lower in his seat as he passed, getting the distinct impression that to be spotted now would be to embarrass the powerful man, because _something_ had just happened.

He debated texting Ace to tell him, but what good would that do? What would he say? _‘By the way, just saw your dad, he walked to his car then walked away again, see you tomorrow’_. Marco snorted at the thought of it and turned on the engine after checking that Roger had left their floor of the multistorey.

Marco had absolutely no way of knowing that this had been Roger’s first attempt at going to see Rouge.

* * *

  
  
Roger stormed back into the Raftel Building after swiping his key card against the monitor, wrenching the door open with unnecessary force. He pounded up the stairs to his office, ignoring his PA’s confused splutter as he crossed in front of her desk and shut himself up in his office again.

He had failed. Spectacularly.

Roger dropped into his chair behind his desk and simply allowed himself to sit, to breathe heavily and frown deep at the shame of not being able to even get into his damn car. His heart fluttered in his chest with what he could only assume was anxiety, an emotion that he was not accustomed to in the slightest because Roger Gold did not do _fear_ in any capacity.

Or so he had thought.

He raised a trembling hand to his forehead and pressed it there, felt the damp of the sweat that coated his skin.

As he had stood at his car, it had felt like a knife had been shoved into his gut and twisted as he thought of where his journey would end once he began to drive. How the hell did Ace manage to go through this every other day? Roger couldn’t even face it once, nevermind continuously like his son. It was shameful that he couldn’t do what Ace did. Or maybe Ace didn’t go through this at all, didn’t get that panic response as he was leaving to see Rouge, and it had just become a normal part of his life by now.

Roger looked up as a knock sounded at his door, biting back the anger he felt as his PA’s head poked round the door. Sometimes he wished she cared less.

“Mr. Gold?” she asked, tone tentative, “I thought you were done for the day. You said you were leaving a bit early, so…”

She trailed off under his severe gaze, clearly regretting her decision to check in with her boss. Roger heaved a sigh, feeling the slightest tinge of sympathy for the blonde woman.

“I changed my mind,” he said, voice rough, “I remembered something I needed to do. I’ll leave early another day. In fact,” he sat up a little straighter, suddenly determined to not let his future self get away with failure once again, “put it in my calendar, won’t you? I’ll be leaving at four on Thursday instead. Can’t do tomorrow; I’ve got late meetings with the chiefs of service for medicine and surgery. Blasted fools can’t sort out their nonsense for themselves.”

Everyone knew how medical and surgical physicians notoriously did not see eye to eye, forever bickering about anything and everything and thinking that their division was more deserving of room allocation or whatever else was the flavor of the month. Surgeons tended to refer to physicians as having an easy desk job with no worries, whereas physicians were quite open about their opinions that surgeons were nothing more than barbarians who enjoyed butchering people. It was all ridiculous, really, and Roger didn’t need to be involved in whatever this particular gripe was about, but as always his habit of getting involved had won over once again.

His PA nodded and left him in peace again, and Roger suddenly wished he had asked her for a cup of coffee. He didn’t want to leave his office and go to the kitchen to make one himself, not when it risked meeting others and being forced into cheery small talk with them. He wasn’t up for that right now. Maybe he really should just invest in a coffee machine in his office, Roger conceded with a small sigh.

He took out his phone and unlocked it, taking a moment to gather himself before opening his chat history with Ace. There was no turning back anymore, Roger understood with a grimace; he had laid the foundation work now and he was going to see it through. He tapped out a message to his son and pressed send before he could overthink it and delete it, as was always the case, and he finally, at long last, broke Ace’s chain of one-sided messaging:

_I’m going to the hospice later in the week._

* * *

  
  
Wednesday morning rolled round far too quickly for Marco’s liking, finding his two furry alarm clocks climbing on his chest and pawing at his face after what felt like barely minutes of sleep. He snatched up his actual alarm clock from the table beside his bed and groaned, his feeble hope of it actually still being the middle of the night shattered by the reading of 6:25 AM on the illuminated face.

He heaved himself up after coaxing the cats off him, both purring wildly in anticipation of their breakfast. Marco showered and dressed quickly before feeding the girls and making himself a coffee, sitting at the kitchen table to read the news on his phone with his mug in hand.

Only he didn’t take in the headlines announcing death and misery, or how political opponents were sneering at each other over today’s apparent big fiasco. Marco’s eyes slid out of focus as he allowed his mind to wander, to think about what he had done last night.

He’d thought of Ace again instead of sleeping, the alcohol in his system stealing away any semblance of restraint as he had rolled with his fantasy. This time he had imagined the man underneath him, knees bent and belly pressed to the bed as Marco pinned him down and devoured him. He had sworn he could taste the sweat on Ace’s back as he had licked up his spine in his mind, felt those thick muscles twitch against his lips and Ace’s warmth grip his cock as he’d worked himself to orgasm.

Marco groaned into his palm as he pressed it to his face. This _needed_ to stop. He couldn’t let it continue, despite how surprisingly satisfying it was and how intense of a high he got from it. Ace deserved better than that. Not that Ace had any way of knowing how Marco’s thoughts had roamed his body for the last two nights, but…

Marco headed to the hospital with his mind reeling with Ace, excited by the prospect of seeing him today and of speaking to him rather than communicating via painfully short texts. He really hoped he would be able to catch him before morning clinic after taking advantage of the early morning silence of the department.

Only the department was not silent, nor was Marco the first to arrive that morning, which was intensely unusual. And to make things even more strange, it was Thatch who was there before him.

Marco frowned at the keys dangling from Thatch’s ajar office door, and was sincerely tempted to take them and hide them; he was forever telling Thatch to not leave them in the door, yet his words seemed to fall on deaf ears.

“Did you sleep here or something?” Marco asked as he pushed the door open, and he nearly dropped his travel mug of coffee in surprise when his eyes met those of Thatch’s youngest daughter, Emily, and then her older sister, Bianca.

The girls beamed at their uncle before Emily launched herself off her chair at him, squealing, “Uncle Marco!” and seizing him round the middle in a bone-crunching hug. Bianca followed, smushing her sister into Marco as she flung her arms around the pair of them.

Thatch chuckled, once again fighting with his tie and looking tired and drained. Marco couldn’t say he blamed him, given that he was in work a solid two hours before he usually appeared, and if the girls were with him it meant that Fiona hadn’t been at home to get them ready so early in the morning.

“I’m taking them to school in a bit,” Thatch explained as Marco looked at him questioningly, “Fee got asked to take over some professor’s lecture this morning up north; he had an accident on his bike yesterday, poor old boy, so she agreed. I dropped Sophia off with her friend on the way here, but these two,” he shot his two younger daughters what Marco could only describe as a Dad Look, making the auburn-haired children giggle madly, “won Daddy over and convinced him to bring them to work first.”

“You’re too soft on them,” Marco said fondly, pulling out a chair at the desk that Thatch had in his office for meetings. Emily clambered into his lap as soon as he sat down, swinging her legs happily.

“Tell me about it,” Thatch groaned, abandoning his attempt on his tie and flinging it onto his paperwork-strewn desk, “they tried to convince me they wanted to see where I work, which was obviously a lie because they’ve been here more times than I can remember, but then Emily let slip that they just want to eye up Ace.”

Marco looked at the two girls in surprise as they spluttered in furious embarrassment, Bianca squealing for her father to shut up immediately and Emily flushing red.

“Ace?” Marco asked, feeling himself starting to color just by saying his name, which was monumentally stupid, “why on Earth do you two want to see Ace?”

“We don’t!” Bianca shrieked, covering her ears and glaring at Thatch, “Daddy, you promised you wouldn’t tell anyone!”

“When I mentioned a while ago that we had a new boy in the department, they all took a huge interest once they learned he isn’t ‘an old man’, as they put it,” Thatch said, laughing at his daughters’ aghast expressions.

“Daddy said he’s really handsome!” Emily said, swivelling round in Marco’s lap to look up at him imploringly, and Marco smiled at her, thoroughly amused, “and we’ve never seen a good-looking doctor before.”

“Congrats, Emily, you’ve just broken your Uncle Marco’s heart,” Thatch chortled.

Emily heaved a dramatic sigh and rolled her eyes at her dad.

“Ace isn’t a doctor,” Marco said, “he just helps your dad out a lot with his work because he’s a bit silly.” He flashed Thatch a grin as the girls giggled. “And handsome? Really? Is that how you’d normally describe your co-workers?”

It was how Marco would describe Ace, that was for certain.

Thatch snorted a laugh, “they twisted the phrase ‘pretty young and a nice guy’ to mean ‘I work with a Greek God of a man’. Go figure. They haven’t shut up about him for weeks.”

“Dad!” Emily cried as Bianca clamped her hands over her ears again, apparently unable to bear the embarrassment her father was subjecting her to.

“What? You haven’t!” Thatch shot back, clearly enjoying embarrassing his girls in front of Marco, “all I’ve heard since last night is how you two were so excited about meeting him! I’m surprised Sophia didn’t want to come too, she’s the one who seemed most interested in the poor lad at first.”

“Soph’s got a _boyfriend_ ,” Emily dragged out the word like it was something disgusting, “she wants to go to school early with Sara so she can see him; he gets dropped off early by his mom. God, Daddy, didn’t you _know?_ ”

It was Thatch’s turn to splutter in outrage this time, looking to Marco for confirmation that what his youngest was saying was true, but Marco just shrugged at him, grinning. Ah, children and their little lives. Marco remembered how Bianca, at only six years old, had proudly announced one evening at dinner when Marco was visiting that she had kissed her boyfriend that afternoon. Thatch had flown into a rage while Fiona had laughed and asked if Bianca wanted to bring the little boy over one day after school to play.

“She’s only eleven!” Thatch wheezed, looking from daughter to daughter to Marco, as if hoping someone would announce it was a joke, “what’s an eleven-year-old doing, having a boyfriend?”

“Probably the same as you when you were eleven,” Marco shrugged, “same as most kids do when they’re that age. They’ll call each other boyfriend and girlfriend and then never even get to holding hands. It’s nothing to worry about, Ed, they’re just kids.”

Thatch grumbled and grabbed up his tie again, glowering at Marco. Marco was right, and this was nothing to worry about at all, but Thatch was extremely over-protective of his girls around boys in their school. Marco didn’t like to think about what would happen when Sophia started dating for real in a few years’ time.

“Anyway,” Thatch said with the air of a man grasping for his dignity, “girls, don’t be creepy around Ace, all right? Be on your best behaviour, both of you.”

Bianca sighed and Emily looked up at Marco again, her expression telling him that she thought her dad was a complete idiot. Marco chuckled at her and patted her on the back, changing the subject.

“Not long to go now, huh?” he said, referring to how Emily would turn eight in a few days.

Emily positively shook with excitement at this, her eyes alive with the prospect of her birthday looming. “I can’t _wait_ to see what you’ve got for me, Uncle Marco,” she said, “you always get the best presents.”

“Wow, thanks,” Thatch muttered sarcastically as he successfully knotted his tie this time, tugging the knot up to his throat, “who’s getting you a phone, Emily? Remind me of that one.”

Emily flashed a radiant grin at Thatch, two rows of little white teeth showing. “Other than you, Daddy, of course,” she said. Thatch nodded approvingly.

Marco bounced his knee to get Emily’s attention again, earning a squeal of laughter from her as she was jiggled. “Anyway, I need to get started on my work,” he told her, pulling an exaggerated sad face at her fierce pout when she looked up at him, “but I’ll say goodbye before your dad takes you to school.”

“Can I come and sit in your office, Uncle Marco?” Bianca asked hopefully as Emily hopped off Marco’s lap.

“No, you’ll leave him alone and stay in here with me,” Thatch said before Marco could open his mouth, “your uncle is a busy man, girls, so leave him be.”

“And you’re not?” Marco grinned at Thatch, who just raised an eyebrow at him.

“But _Daddy_ ,” Emily whined, “you’re so _boring_.”

“Are you determined to break my heart, dear youngest of mine? Are you?”

Marco chuckled as he left Thatch’s office, closing the door behind him to muffle the sounds of Emily’s retort at her father. He turned to unlock his own office, and as he did so, Ace came through the front door of the department.

Marco’s heart and stomach both seemed to dissolve at the sight of him, looking effortlessly attractive in his pale blue work shirt with the top two buttons undone, his thick black hair tucked behind one ear. Ace looked up at Marco staring at him and flushed, stunned, as he tugged his earphones out of his ears.

“Morning,” Ace said in a would-be casual voice, “you OK?”

Marco nodded a little too vigorously, gesturing to his office door. “Just going in,” he said feebly, even though it was obvious what he had been doing. The faint hint of concern in Ace’s eyes pulled him in, made it so that Marco couldn’t stop staring at him. Had he always been that beautiful? Had his eyes always been such a dark gray?

“Uh,” Ace mumbled, looking to Thatch’s door with the keys still in the lock, “I take it Dr. Thatch is in already? That’s a new one.”

He reached for the door handle but was stopped by Marco grabbing his wrist. Ace blinked up at him, confused, and Marco forced himself not to stammer.

“Not yet,” he said quietly, so that they wouldn’t be heard through the door, “my office.”

He led Ace into his office by the wrist, dropping it like Ace was on fire when he noticed he still had a hold of him. Ace closed the office door behind himself with a click, looking thoroughly confused.

“Everything OK?” he asked, frowning at Marco.

“Yes, fine,” Marco said hurriedly, realising how weird he must be coming across and willing himself to stop behaving like a teenager left alone with their first crush. “Just to give you a fair warning, Ed’s brought two of his kids in.”

Ace’s face lit up, which Marco had to admit made him look positively adorable. “Which two?”

“Bianca and Emily, the two youngest,” Marco said, “Ed mentioned you to them and they’ve decided they want a formal introduction. Don’t ask why, I don’t really understand how little girls’ minds work. They seem interested in you because Ed’s colleagues are usually old men or his secretary. Or me,” he added, shrugging. “But don’t feel you have to see them if you’re not comfortable around children or something.”

“Are you kidding?” Ace laughed, “I love ‘em! I want a whole bunch of my own one day.”

And indeed, Ace actually looked excited by the prospect of meeting Bianca and Emily. Dammit, he was cute. So stupidly, impossibly cute.

“And also,” Marco said, wanting to take advantage of this brief window of time they had together, “how was yesterday? How’s your mom?”

Ace’s expression shifted, but Marco couldn’t quite read it. He looked both intense, like he really wanted to tell Marco something, and yet also, strangely, a little withdrawn, as if he were hurting. Marco looked at him curiously, close enough to be able to make out every single freckle that adorned Ace’s cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

“Later,” he said, meeting Marco’s gaze, his expression relaxing a little as he looked at him, “after you’ve finished in clinic. I want to talk to you about it properly, and here’s not really the place for it. Do you wanna…” he hesitated, absent-mindedly scratching at his forearm as his licked his lips, stalling, “do you wanna meet for lunch? Starbucks is right opposite the clinic rooms, so…”

Yes, absolutely yes, Marco wanted to say. A lunch date with Ace? Yes. Getting to sit and watch Ace’s face and listen to his voice under such innocent circumstances? Double yes.

But panic, that same panic he had felt on Monday when talking to Nami, squeezed at his chest. It was one thing to be seen around the hospital with Thatch, Law, or any of his medical team from the wards or outpatients, but to be seen with Ace, who was completely unknown to the wider hospital? The rumours would start again for sure, even after all this time, even though the gossip and stares had been over five years ago, happening right after he had joined the department.

This was stupid, and Ace so very clearly wanted to meet up with him, his dark eyes shining as he looked up at Marco so intently. Ace didn’t know any of what had happened in Marco’s past, knew literally nothing whatsoever, and it was going to stay like that.

“How about we walk to the shop just off site,” Marco suggested, “we’ll pick up something from there and find somewhere to sit. I don’t much enjoy being stared at by my patients who leave my clinic and end up in Starbucks before they head home.” That much was true, at least; there had been several occasions where he had popped in to get a drink or a sandwich, only to find himself queueing beside a patient he had just given difficult news to moments earlier. That was always awkward to the nth degree.

Ace seemed fine with this compromise. “OK, just text me when you’re done and I’ll meet you outside the clinic rooms,” he smiled, “it’s a date!”

Marco’s eyebrows shot up, amused by the way Ace immediately tried to retract those last words.

“No, wait, I didn’t mean— not a _date_ date, I mean—”

Cute.

Marco chuckled and patted Ace fondly on the arm, not daring to do anything else. “Sure. I’ll see you later for our not-a- _date_ -date-lunch-date. Have fun with the girls.”

And he opened his office door for Ace to leave, the young man’s cheeks crimson and eyes bright.

* * *

  
  
They met outside the clinic waiting area as planned, Marco feeling his heart skip in his chest at the sight of Ace reading the whiteboard with today’s morning clinics scrawled across it. Ace beamed at him and fell into step beside him, asking how clinic had gone.

Marco chuckled, already bursting to tell his co-worker about one particularly unfortunate - yet also incredibly hilarious - patient.

“So this new referral, an old boy, comes into the clinic room and sits on the bed, which is strange because I offered him the chair next to the desk, right,” Marco grinned at the memory as they left the atrium and emerged into the midday sun, “and, well, it isn’t unusual for older patients to get a bit confused about their appointments, not if they’re seeing lots of different specialities in a short space of time. So this poor old man got this appointment confused with his first appointment with the lower gastrointestinal surgeons, and—”

“The butt surgeons?” Ace interjected eloquently, and Marco snorted a laugh.

“Yes, them.” That was how he would now refer to them for the rest of his days. Privately, of course. “Well, anyway, the poor man didn’t listen when I told him we were here today to discuss his heart concerns, and he sort of waves aside what I said and goes, ‘son, it’d be much quicker if I just showed you what I mean’, and so he wriggles off the bed, pulls down his pants, bends over and—”

Ace threw back his head and howled his laughter, causing a few members of the public nearby to jump in fright.

“So what the hell did you do?”

“What _could_ I do? I just sat there in horror! Thank goodness the HCA had her wits about her and hoisted his pants back up again. I was expecting to pop a stethoscope to this man’s chest and listen to his heart, maybe take his pulse, and instead I saw—” Marco cleared his throat as Ace continued to laugh at his enormous misfortune. “Well, let’s just say that yes, he does indeed have a prolapse.”

Ace snorted so hard he actually doubled up, stopping short and gripping his knees as his shoulders shook with laughter. Marco couldn’t help himself and started too, chuckling at the sight of Ace finding his ordeal so hilarious.

They bought lunch at the small corner shop as planned, Marco grabbing a sandwich and a drink, Ace loading up with a foot long sub, two packets of chips, a pack of sushi that ‘looked interesting’, an apple, a banana, and a smoothie. Ace had the good grace to look a little sheepish when Marco raised his eyebrows at his mountain of food.

“I’m a bit hungry today,” he said with a smile.

“A _bit?_ ”

Ace giggled.

They found a bench a little further down the road from the shop just inside the grounds of a park. Ace spilled his food onto the bench between them as they sat and ripped into the sub immediately, leaving Marco feeling a little wounded by how he didn’t seem at all bothered that they couldn’t sit shoulder to shoulder.

“Oh, right, I gotta tell you,” Ace said, his cheeks full, “you’ll never guess what Dr. Thatch’s kids did this morning. Go on, guess.”

Marco shrugged, trying to imagine what they could have possibly done to Ace, someone they were very keen on meeting yet also very shy about. “No idea. They didn’t ask you to be their boyfriend, did they?”

Ace laughed, waving his hand as if to dispel the words from the air. “Nah, nothing like that. They’re great kids, I can see why Dr. Thatch dotes on them. They have such sharp senses of humor.” He took another bite of his sub and watched Marco sip his drink, eyes following the bob of his throat each time he swallowed. “They asked me to come along with them on Saturday for Emily’s birthday party.”

Marco nearly, _nearly_ , spat his mouthful of diet Coke out.

“They _what?_ ” Marco spluttered, staring at Ace’s grin in amazement.

“Yep,” he said cheerfully, “right before they left for school. Dr. Thatch encouraged it, said it would be fun if I wanted to tag along.”

“Seriously?”

“Mhm.”

Marco bit into his sandwich to give himself a moment to think, frowning at Ace’s smile. What the hell was Ed doing? He had never asked any of their other colleagues to join them for any of his daughters’ birthdays before, nor indeed did he ask them to do anything outside of work other than occasionally get dinner, go for a drink, or maybe go bowling against other specialities for a bit of a laugh. This was downright fishy. Ed wouldn’t allow the girls to ask Ace along just because they were working closely together at the moment - Miranda hadn’t been invited, and she had known the girls for years, always chatting with them and exclaiming happily at their toys that they proudly showed her. Unless, of course, the girls _had_ invited her and Marco was none the wiser… although somehow he couldn’t see that being the case.

“And what did you say?” But Marco could already tell, could see the answer in Ace’s eyes, and could feel his own cheeks coloring before the younger man even opened his mouth.

“I said I’d go, of course,” Ace beamed, confirming Marco’s assumption, “can’t let a little girl down on her birthday, can I? And I love amusement parks, I haven’t been to one for years. The only problem is I don’t know what to get her. What does she like? What did you go for in the end?”

Marco felt himself telling Ace about the bike he had bought for Emily after getting Thatch’s permission to splash out on a nice mint green one with a little basket on the front, shutting down his worries that he would upstage her own parents before learning that they had already bought her a smartphone. He heard the words leave him, but his mind was doing a kind of somersault, reeling at the thought of spending a whole day with Ace in such a date-y setting. They could innocently share an ice cream… or go up in the ferris wheel together… or go in the haunted house… Marco wasn’t so proud that he wouldn’t pretend to be frightened just so he could hold Ace’s arm…

“Marco?”

“Hm?” He had been gazing vacantly at Ace, losing himself to his imagination. “Oh, I got her a bike. Not a pink one, she’d throw a tantrum, probably, but it’s got these sparkly tassles on the handles that are removable for when she decides she’s too cool for _those_ , too. I was going to get her this dolls seat that can be attached to the back for her to put her dollies in - she’s really into baby dolls at the moment, says she wants to be a midwife when she grows up - but I didn’t know if that’d be overkill.”

Ace’s face shone with excitement, clearly inspired by Marco’s present. Marco so _very_ wanted to kiss him, he looked so sincerely sweet in that moment. He had it bad, and they hadn’t even been friendly for a damn week yet.

“How about I get her a helmet to go with it?” Ace asked, “you didn’t get one of those, did you?”

Ah, no, he hadn’t. That was pretty important.

“And I can get her that seat thing too, if you show me what you looked at.”

“Sounds good to me. I’ll send you the links to the ones I found.”

Marco had imagined doing an enormous range of things with Ace over the past few days, but shopping for kids dolly bike seats together was certainly not one of them. He smiled at Ace though, felt his heart soften at how domestic and _nice_ this was, and how warm it made him feel to be able to talk about something like this with someone again, even if that someone wasn’t his boyfriend yet.

_Yet?_ Marco’s heart seemed to beat harder at the thought. He rubbed at his chest distractedly as Ace finished his sub and tore open a pack of chips, offering the bag to Marco. Marco took one, then a second with a smile as Ace shook the bag insistently at him. They sat in silence for a moment as Ace munched his way through the bag, quite content with people-watching together until Ace piped up again.

“You asked about Mom earlier, right?” he said, reaching for the apple now, and Marco had to refrain from asking if Ace intended to eat everything he’d bought right now, because the answer was almost definitely yes.

“Yes - how was she?”

Ace took a bite of the apple and chewed, obviously thinking about how to answer that.

“She was pretty good, all things considering,” he said when he’d swallowed, “she was all excited to show me these ribbons one of the nurses, Ines, had brought from home to tie in her hair. She used to have lovely hair, really thick and wavy, but thanks to the chemo she lost loads of it so it’s all thin and brittle now.” Ace took another bite before continuing. “But she’s actually happy with that, y’know? She’s so happy she didn’t lose all of it. She really thought she would, and so did I, but she still has enough to plait and brush.”

“Your mom really does sound like she can find the positive in anything,” Marco said, impressed and pleased with Rouge’s resilience.

Ace nodded. “You got that right. She’s always been like that, so I don’t think it’s her putting on a brave face or anything. She really does see everything as a cup half full.”

“And how about the wheelchair situation? Any changes there?”

“Nope.” Ace finished the apple and put the core in the trash can beside the bench, heaving a sigh when he turned back to Marco. “She hasn’t walked further than the bathroom since last week. Her palliative care doctor wants to see me and Dad together to talk about her end of life plans again, now that… well… it’s looking like… y’know.”

Marco did.

“Which leads me onto _this_.”

Ace pulled his phone out of his pocket and showed Marco a chat history between himself and Roger that seemed painfully one-sided, all sent from himself bar a single one-liner. Marco read it aloud.

“I’m going to the hospice later in the week…” Marco looked up at Ace, gaping at him. “Is he really? When?”

“No idea,” Ace said, frowning and sounding annoyed all of a sudden, “look, he didn’t respond when I asked him. I said we could go together if that makes it easier for him, but he’s just gone right back to ignoring me again. I don’t know why he has to be like this.”

Marco understood, even if he didn’t agree with the way Roger was handling things. Still, It was a huge step for the man to even text Ace, nevermind actually go and visit his wife.

“And how do you feel about this?” Marco asked, looking at Ace seriously. There was no way that any of this was easy for him, no matter how upbeat he seemed most of the time.

“Well, glad, obviously,” Ace said, frowning at Marco in what appeared to be thought more than irritation or sadness, “if he actually goes through with it, of course. She wants to see him so badly. Every time I walk into the room I can see she hopes it’s him at last. She deserves better than him.”

Ace balled his fists in his lap and sighed, dropping his gaze from Marco’s concerned face. Marco reached out to him on instinct, laying his hand over Ace’s curled fist and giving it a small squeeze.

“People deal with things like this in different ways,” he said softly, noticing the way Ace’s cheeks colored under his freckles in that really rather lovely way that they so often did. “Roger is hurting just the same as you are right now, I can promise you that. You deal with it by facing your mother head on, and by extension tackling your grief and pain continuously every time you see her. Roger is bottling it up, and he’s setting himself up to get all that pain that should have been spread out through the weeks and months in one fell swoop. It’ll likely break him when he does finally see her.”

Ace just looked at Marco’s hand on his own, expression impassive and blank. Marco had wanted to say this to him right at the beginning when he had first found out about Rouge, but the timing hadn’t been right and would have only hurt Ace more, but he needed to hear it.

“He isn’t avoiding her - or you - because he doesn’t love you both. It’s quite the opposite, I’m sure.”

“You’re sure?” Ace looked up at him, something akin to a challenge resting in his eyes, like he was daring Marco to try and convince him of something he already knew the definite answer to. “Are you speaking from personal experience or professional here? I mean this with no offence, honestly, but even if you were to see thousands of grieving patients, you can’t really know what it feels like or how you’d think about things unless you go through it yourself.”

He had a point; a very good point, in fact. Marco had wanted to avoid making this about himself, had had no intention of ever bringing up his past and speaking of his own loss again, burying it deep down and continuing to live with it as he had been for years now. He had dealt with it at the time - poorly, admittedly, and wasn’t getting much better at it, given his nightly sleeping aid in the form of alcohol - and he didn’t want it to override anything that Ace was feeling right now, here in the present. But if it could help Ace to understand Roger’s side…

“Both professional and personal,” Marco said calmly, his voice holding steady as he looked into those deep gray eyes, “I’m no stranger to loss of a loved one. I can relate to how Roger is dealing with this because it isn’t too far off how I handled… it,” he finished lamely.

Ace stared at him, clearly taken aback by this. Marco felt Ace unclench his fist under his palm and he made to pull away, but to his surprise Ace just turned his hand over and held his gently. Butterflies erupted in Marco’s stomach at the feeling of his hand in Ace’s, at the look of tender concern there on his features all of a sudden, a stark contrast to the frown that had been there seconds ago.

“Who was it?” Ace asked, “I mean, was it someone close to you?”

Marco nodded. “The closest.” But he didn’t elaborate, instead giving Ace’s hand a squeeze. “It was a long time ago and doesn’t matter anymore, I just wanted you to know that Roger really isn’t staying away because he doesn’t care or anything like that. He’s hurting too, and it’ll be harder than he can imagine to go and see your mother in the hospice, but he needs to do it. He won’t forgive himself if he doesn’t.”

Ace sighed, seeming to accept what Marco said, even if he didn’t fully believe him about Roger. “This isn’t going to end well, is it?” he said heavily.

“It’ll never end,” Marco said quietly, “not really. They never leave us, the people we love. But it does get easier with time. It’s cliché, but it really does. You just have to make the most of the time you have before the inevitable happens, and remember that you’ll always love her. And I know you said she keeps telling you this, but you do have to live your life as well. There’s nothing to be found in dwelling on memories and ‘what if’ scenarios forever.”

Ace gave Marco’s hand a gentle squeeze back before saying, “are you speaking from personal experience again?”

“I am.”

“Then…” Ace paused, gathering himself before continuing, “I guess I’ll need someone experienced in these matters to stick around and help me, won’t I? If they feel up to it, of course.”

Marco’s heart pounded in his chest and his face felt hot at Ace’s implication, wishing his brain wouldn’t leap to a conclusion that involved the two of them as a couple. That was a step too far, even for him, seeing as they really still didn’t know each other all that well. But a lot had happened in such a short amount of time, more than anything he’d experienced with anyone else since Shanks. They had got swept up in their feelings then too, and it had worked out then, hadn’t it?

“It depends on you,” Marco said at length, “grief is a very personal thing. I didn’t want anyone near me when… and I’d imagine Roger will withdraw as well. But if you find that you want someone around,” he smiled at Ace, sincere and open, and Ace mirrored him, “then I’m sure the person of your choice would be more than happy to be with you.”

Ace dropped his gaze to their hands, cheeks ablaze, and he slowly, hesitantly, shifted his fingers to lace between Marco’s. Ace didn’t look at him, even when Marco did a double take from their interlocked fingers to Ace’s down-turned face, and even the tips of his ears started to color.

_So. Cute._

“Thank you,” Ace mumbled.

Marco didn’t reply. He settled back against the back of the bench and watched the world go by, alight with nerves and excitement and concern for the young man beside him.

He’d do what he could for Ace when the time came, would provide him with whatever support and help he needed, and he would be there for him. He wouldn’t leave him alone to hurt, not if Ace wanted him there.

And something told him that Ace definitely would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are progressing for our boys! They're going pretty fast, but then again, I've known couples who have got together within 24 hours of meeting each other, and they're still going strong. It took my husband and I two entire years of knowing each other before we started dating. I don't recommend waiting that long, and these two certainly aren't going to... Attraction is a funny thing.
> 
> Next chapter is the one I've been looking forward to writing for some time, so if things go as planned then it won't be a month before the next update. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has a very stark split between two scenes and would have probably been better off as two short chapters, but hey, I don't like short chapters so take it as it is!  
> Next chapter is actually the one I've been looking forward to writing; I realised when I sat down to start it that no, I couldn't just leap into it without addressing the below content first. So enjoy!

Ace couldn’t settle to anything that afternoon, counting and re-counting and re-re-counting lines upon lines of patients who had somehow been missed for follow-up the year before. Two hundred… three hundred… shit, he lost count again… didn’t anyone in the system build team know how to add numbers to all of these entries?

He leaned back in his chair and heaved an enormous sigh, earning a curious glance from the registrar who he shared an office with whenever the young doctor found a moment to spare for admin time. Ideally, Ace would be sat with Thatch in his office so that they could work together more easily, but the spare desk in there acted as a meeting table for the department. Thatch’s office was regularly taken over by anyone from the head of nursing to the divisional chief of medicine for meetings; word got around quickly when a potential meeting spot in a private office presented itself, meaning that those in the know could bypass the irritating room booking system and not have to fight over one of the designated meeting rooms in the building. Plus, there wasn’t a computer at that large, circular desk. Not that Ace particularly minded - when Thatch was off and about doing god knows what, Ace quite liked being left in peace at the end of the corridor.

But desk allocation wasn’t his problem right now. What he needed was to speak to someone about the cause of the butterflies that simply refused to settle in his stomach.

He had held Marco’s hand. And Marco hadn’t pulled away. OK, sure, given the circumstances it wasn’t an entirely unusual response, and yes, really, Ace did appreciate his empathy and his calm presence during these difficult times, but… it was so difficult to not lose himself to the nervous energy that coursed through his body whenever he was near the cardiologist.

And he desperately needed to talk to someone about it before he burst and started giggling like one of Thatch’s kids.

He shot a sideways glance at the reg to check he wasn’t watching before pulling his phone out of his pocket and tapping in a message to the one person who would have to listen to his problems whether he liked it or not.

 _Deuce,_ Ace typed, _Deuce omg help me I’m dying I need to talk to you like right now save me_

That was sufficiently vague enough to pique Deuce’s interest and lure a reply out of him, surely. Ace set his phone down on the desk and stretched.

He nearly screamed when his phone vibrated loudly on the wooden surface of the desk, making the poor reg jump violently as Deuce’s name flashed up on the screen in a phone call. Ace snatched up his phone and rejected the call, apologising profusely to the reg as the man massaged his chest over his heart and frowned at Ace.

And Deuce called him again.

Ace spluttered his apologies yet again and left the office, slipping out of the doorway just right of him and hiding in the stairwell that served as the fire escape route out of that end of the building. He answered the call and held his phone to his ear.

“What?” Ace hissed, keeping his voice down even though he didn’t actually need to now.

“Don’t ‘what’ me,” Deuce’s snappy reply came, “you said you were dying and then rejected my call! What’s going on? Are you OK? Where are you?”

OK, so perhaps being that dramatic hadn’t been a good idea. Deuce, Ace knew only too well after being his best friend since they were teenagers together in school, was fiercely protective of Ace. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for his best friend, but he also wouldn’t stand for any nonsense from him.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Ace soothed, trying not to laugh at Deuce’s overreaction, “I’m at work. It’s all good. I just wanted to talk to you about something.”

A pause. Then Deuce huffed, “so you’re not in immediate danger? You were just being dramatic?”

“Yeah, sorry, but listen, I gotta tell you—”

“It’s not about your mom, is it?”

“What?” Great, now Ace felt guilty. “No, no, she’s OK, I just wanted to—”

“Oh,” Deuce’s tone had changed completely, coming flat and deadpan through the phone, “I think I hear the nurses calling me. Bye.”

And Deuce hung up. Ace rolled his eyes and opened his recent calls to ring him back.

If there was one thing Deuce didn’t have any patience for, it was Ace when he got too excited. If he wasn’t suffering and was perfectly safe in his office at work, then Deuce wouldn’t feel the need to interrupt his own shift on the general surgery ward in his role as a first year junior doctor.

“I swear I’ll give you a real reason to think you’re dying,” Deuce growled when he picked up Ace’s second callback, and Ace just laughed at him down the phone.

“Sorry, but I really do want to talk to you about something,” Ace pleaded, “please Deuce, you’re my bestest friend in the whole world and I love you and you’re the best doctor ever and—”

“Jeez, all right, shut up.” Ace cackled at Deuce’s obvious embarrassment; he could almost feel his furious blush through the phone. Deuce never could handle it when Ace - or anyone - showered him with praise and affection. “I can’t talk right now unless it’s an emergency. You free after work? We can talk after I’m done here.”

“Yeah, sure,” Ace said, grinning, “I’ll wait for you in Starbucks in outpatients. I wanted to go there for lunch, but…” ah, the fluttering sensation in his stomach had returned. “I’ll tell you about it when I see you.”

“See you there, then,” Deuce grunted, “and by the way, ‘bestest’ isn’t a real word.”

Ace chuckled as Deuce hung up again.

He was looking forward to gushing like a schoolgirl to his _bestest_ friend.

* * *

Ace waved across the coffee shop at Deuce when he saw him arrive, holding up the two drinks he had bought already. Deuce’s order was always the same - a medium flat white espresso - and Ace had it ready for his arrival so he wouldn’t have to wait in the long queue.

“Thanks,” Deuce said, taking the cup that was thrust at him and pulling a chair out opposite Ace, “man, today was hell incarnate. I’m so glad it’s over.”

“Why? What happened?” Ace asked, suddenly feeling guilty for bothering Deuce at work during a hard day.

Even though they worked in the same hospital, it was rare for them to get the opportunity to see each other. Deuce’s shift pattern changed weekly, often including very late finishes, weekends, and night shifts, whereas Ace worked a comfy 8-4 weekday pattern. And as was the standard for all junior doctors, Deuce’s placement was on a rotation around different departments every three months - at the moment he was placed on the general surgery ward, but before that he had been on the fracture ward, and he had no idea where he would be going into his second year. It sounded like enormous fun to Ace, but Deuce always complained about it, saying he was looking forward to finishing and getting settled somewhere permanent.

“Nothing in particular, it was just really busy. Luckily I got your message right when things calmed down, but they ramped up again afterwards.” Deuce pulled his lanyard with his ID badge on up over his head and dropped it onto the table between them, and Ace snatched it up immediately.

“Wow, you look furious in your photo,” Ace grinned, inspecting the ID, “what did the photographer say to make you look like that?”

Deuce frowned at him. “He told me to smile.”

Ace snorted a laugh. That was so typical of Deuce - whenever he was told to smile for a photo he panicked and sort of pulled a pained grimace. It had made for some really interesting school photos back in the day.

“Look at mine compared to yours,” Ace said, taking off his own lanyard and holding it out for Deuce, “I’m all smiley-smiley and you look like an escaped convict.”

Deuce pulled a face at the tiny photo of Ace beaming at the camera before setting it down on the table on top of his own. “You always were photogenic,” he grumbled, tugging at the front of his mint green surgical scrubs absently. “So anyway, what mad situation have you landed yourself in this time? If you need help with heaving a fridge up to your apartment again you can forget it; I can’t believe I didn’t give myself a hernia last time.”

Ace chuckled at the memory of Deuce shouting just about every single swear word known to man when Ace had enlisted his help on moving day a couple of years ago instead of paying for professionals to haul his stuff over.

“I wouldn’t even dream of asking you with something like that again,” Ace smiled.

He picked his cup up and took a sip of his drink, suddenly feeling the return of those butterflies again. Where to start? He hadn’t told Deuce anything about Marco yet, their texts over the last week or so being sparse due to Ace’s worry about Rouge and Deuce not being the most talkative of texters. When he wasn’t at work on the ward he was either studying or writing fantasy fiction, and so Ace often joked that Deuce used up all of his words in those endeavours and left none for texting.

Ace’s stomach gave a nervous sort of jolt as he opened his mouth to speak again. “You know I moved to cardiology a while back?” Deuce made a sound of recognition in response. “Well, a few weeks ago I started talking to one of the doctors, Dr. Marco White. He’s really nice and he helped me out with a problem I had, and one thing led to another and I went back to his last weekend and got really drunk.”

Deuce raised an eyebrow. “Please don’t tell me you slept with a senior physician.”

“No!” Ace felt his cheeks ignite at the thought of it, at the thought of Marco lying between his thighs, draped up his body, damp with sweat and seated deep inside— “Why is that everyone’s immediate thought, huh? Do I really come across as that easy?”

Deuce shrugged, finally looking amused. “What else am I meant to assume when you lead with a line like that?” OK, that was a fair point. He probably could have phrased it better. “And you _were_ easy not so long ago; I distinctly remember your nineteenth birthday where you went missing and I had to—”

“Yeah, well,” Ace interjected hastily, not wanting that particular night’s events recalled; he would probably die of the shame, remembering what nineteen-year-old Ace had thought to be a great idea, “that was just a phase. I had a lot of learning to do back then. It was character building, a journey of self-discovery! And if you must know, I haven’t slept with anyone for…” he paused to count on his fingers, muttering to himself, “ten months, Deuce! And I don’t even care! I hadn’t even thought about dating and everything until all _this_ kicked off.”

“Settle down,” Deuce rolled his eyes at his friend, “you’re getting off track. As much as I love discussing your current total lack of a sex life, I’d rather hear more about this doctor you didn’t sleep with.”

“You started it.”

“I know, I know. So this Dr. White guy took you back to his because…?”

“I told him everything about Mom,” Ace said, fiddling with the lid of his cup in an effort to distract himself from Deuce’s expression of mild amusement at his expense, “I just blurted it out and started crying on him. But he didn’t freak out. He asked me back to his because he didn’t want me to be alone after that, and I thought, well, why not?”

Deuce looked a little hurt at this. “You wouldn’t be alone. I would have come and got you, you know I would.”

“Aw Deuce, I know, and I appreciate it. But I’m allowed to make other friends, y’know,” Ace laughed, “and honestly? He was lonely. He thought he was being all subtle by mentioning that he planned to get drunk on his own at home, but it was so damn obvious he was miserable himself. He lives in this really fancy apartment all by himself with his cats, and there’s no photos on the walls or anything, no ornaments or personal things. Nothing. It’s really strange and kinda sad.”

“Whereas _your_ apartment looks like you had an explosion in your closet,” Deuce muttered, grimacing at the memory of the last time he visited, “I hope you haven’t asked him back to your place without having a really thorough clean up; it’s disgusting.”

“Very funny,” Ace said dryly, “and no, he’s only ever been outside the building.” Ace had more sense than to ask Marco back without doing exactly what Deuce said. Living alone had its perks, but keeping the place tidy all by himself wasn’t one of them, especially as there was no one else there to be bothered by him leaving things dotted all over the place.

“So you got drunk with a lonely doctor,” Deuce summarised, pulling Ace back from his thoughts of the state of his home, “and then what happened?”

“And then…”

And then he had started to develop feelings for Marco. It had actually started on the first day Nami had pulled Ace along to Marco’s office, if he was being honest. He had never seen a doctor of Marco’s level do something for someone off their own back like that before, and when he had learned that Marco had a habit of checking over anyone in the department who had a medical problem or query, it had only made him like the man more. Sure, he hadn’t enjoyed showing Marco the psoriasis on his body one bit, but now he knew and he had even gone out of his way to get Ace more medication for it.

And he cared about Rouge, despite never meeting her. He cared about how her condition affected Ace and Roger, and despite all of his lapses in memory that drove Nami to insanity, he never forgot to ask Ace about his mother.

“God, Deuce…”

Deuce blinked at Ace in alarm as his face sunk into his palms and he sighed.

“Wow,” Deuce said, the shock in his voice plain as day, “that bad, huh?”

Ace nodded into his hands. “I think I’m falling in love with him.”

It felt foreign on his tongue to say it out loud, and it brought a dash of crimson to his freckled cheeks, but it didn’t feel _wrong_ , so to speak… just strange, but in all the best ways imaginable.

Because it was true. Ace had never felt like this about anyone before, and certainly not in this sort of time frame. He had dated previously, obviously, and his late teen years had indeed been a whirlwind of discovering himself by hooking up with random men and learning exactly what he liked. It had been fun, and exciting, and had been one huge buzz of adrenaline after another during those drunken nights out. But nothing, not even his short relationships that barely even touched on three months long in his very early twenties, could have ever had him reaching for the word _love_.

Ace looked up at Deuce between his fingers, and he wasn’t surprised to see the stunned expression on his best friend’s face looking back at him. He buried his face back into his hands with a groan through a loud exhale.

“Am I stupid?” he asked Deuce, his words muffled by his palms, “am I just some big idiot who’s mistaken appreciation for attraction? Is that what this is? Because I keep telling myself there’s no way I could like someone this much after such a short time, and we haven’t really _done_ much of anything… but every time I see him I just want to…” Ace groaned another exaggerated sigh that had Deuce looking around them hastily to check they weren’t annoying anyone.

“I have no idea, dude,” Deuce said, clearly at a loss at what to say; while Deuce was Ace’s best friend they didn’t tend to have heart to hearts like this, although that was mostly due to Ace never finding himself in this position before, and Deuce was in a steady relationship with a girl he had met in his first year of university. “Maybe try talking me through it and see if you can make sense of it? It helps to hear yourself say things sometimes; I always understand medical stuff better when I try and explain it to Ann, and she does the same to me. C’mon, tell me about him, let’s start there.”

“You sure?” Ace asked, peeking at Deuce between his fingers to see him nodding.

“You wanted to talk about this, right? So talk.” Deuce took a sip of his coffee. “What does he look like? Describe him for me.”

“Ah, Deuce, what did I ever do to deserve you?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Deuce grinned at him, “you’ve been blessed despite being a total pain in the ass. I want to hear about the guy who’s got you, of all people, swooning.”

Ace sat up straighter and wrapped his hands around his cup again, thinking hard. How to best describe Marco?

“He’s really tall,” Ace started, feeling himself flush at just the thought of the doctor, “taller than me, anyway. And he’s blond with an undercut. He doesn’t look as old as he is - 43,” he added, seeing the question forming on Deuce’s lips, “he said he’s the same age as the doctor I’m working with, and Dr. Thatch was moaning about his age the other day, so…”

Ace could see what Deuce was thinking without him even having to say anything - _this guy is too old for you._ But Ace didn’t think he could care less about their age gap - if anything, it was their professional gap that he was concerned about. He knew full well that Marco didn’t look down on anyone who wasn’t as qualified as him (unlike other doctors that Ace had known in his previous placements around the hospital) but there was something about that level of achievement and intelligence that made him feel a little insecure from time to time.

“And he’s really fit,” Ace continued, not wanting Deuce to slip into his mother hen mode and start lecturing him about his choices in men, “he’s broad-shouldered and muscular and you don’t really notice it when he’s in his work shirts, but that morning after I stayed over… holy shit, Deuce, you should have seen him. He was like…” Ace gestured vaguely, “ _amazing,_ y’know?”

“Not really,” Deuce said, taking a sip of his coffee, “muscles aren’t my thing.”

“Yeah, but even you can appreciate a work of art when you see one,” Ace sighed with emphasis, “just like how I can see Ann’s gorgeous, even if she doesn’t tick any of my boxes.”

“She’ll be thrilled to know she has your seal of approval,” Deuce grinned. “Anyway, I think I might know who he is.”

Ace’s eyebrows rose, surprised. “Really? How?”

“Is he friendly with one of the vascular surgeons?” Ace just shrugged in response. “When I was there on rotation a few months ago this surgeon called Mr. Trafalgar brought in a blond cardiologist to review one of their mutual patients. It stuck out to me at the time because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a physician come up to review a surgical patient - they usually just communicate via email or phone when they have inter-speciality queries, right? Well, this blond doctor actually came to the ward and had an exchange with Mr. Trafalgar that made me think perhaps they were friends outside of work.”

Ace sighed again, looking to all the world like a maiden hopelessly in love. “That does sound like him. He’s _wonderful_ , isn’t he?” he said dreamily, earning a non-committal grunt in reply from his friend, “that’s the kind of person he is, Deuce. He goes out of his way to help people who aren’t his problem, and he’s so caring.”

They sat in silence for a moment, both taking pause to drink their rapidly cooling coffees.

“And I think he likes me, too,” Ace said, continuing as if there hadn’t been a break in the conversation.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I wasn’t sure at first - hell, I assumed he was straight - but I get these vibes from him that he does. Sometimes he just looks at me a certain way and it’s like he’s mentally undressing me. And then I just want to—” Ace made a violent ripping motion in mid-air, “rip his shirt off and—”

“Remember you’re in public,” Deuce growled, glancing around them and catching the eye of at least one curious member of the public, “and I’m sat here in scrubs. We’re technically still at work, so keep it clean, OK?”

“Sorry,” Ace grinned sheepishly and drained the last of his coffee. “And at lunch today - this is why I called you, actually - I held his hand.”

Deuce looked mildly impressed. “And he let you?”

Ace nodded. “We had lunch together and talked about Mom, and he said he’s lost someone close to him too. He didn’t say who, though, but I think it really hurt him because he looked so sad, even though he was obviously trying not to take the focus off Mom. He’s just…” Ace sank forwards again, burying his face in his folded arms on the table this time, muffling his voice when he spoke again, “he’s so sweet, and I wanted to ask him more, but he clearly didn’t want to talk about it and I don’t know why, because I _need_ to talk about Mom with someone sometimes. I mean, I have you, obviously, but he can relate to it better - no offence intended, Deuce, you’ve been a hero through this—”

“Speaking of your Mom,” Deuce interrupted, cutting off Ace’s babbling, “are you not concerned that maybe you’re just using this guy to distract yourself from her?”

Ace looked up quickly, eyes wide with surprise. Deuce looked back at him levelly, serious, a small frown furrowing his brow above his thick-framed glasses. Ace was used to Deuce’s direct approach and inability to sweeten his words, but this still caught him off guard.

It wasn’t like Ace hadn’t considered this, hadn’t chased that very thought around his head many times over the last couple of days. He had battled with the idea that maybe his infatuation was nothing more than physical attraction and projecting what he wanted to see onto Marco, that in other circumstances he wouldn’t be interested and was only drawn to him now because the doctor had seen him at his most vulnerable and not turned him away. It wouldn’t be unheard of, clinging desperately to the first person who showed interest in one’s time of need.

But…

Even though the timing was horrible, and even though Ace wished he didn’t feel anything for him, he couldn’t deny himself what he felt. He knew how it must look, and how Marco would probably have the same reaction as Deuce if Ace ever came clean about how he felt, but he couldn’t convince himself that that was what was happening. Marco had just been in the right place at the wrong time, and Ace knew, when thinking about the doctor with no other factors involved, that he would want to be with him even if Rouge was healthy and happy.

“No,” Ace said slowly, gently, “no, Marco isn’t a distraction. In fact, being around him makes it impossible to pretend everything’s normal, because he brings her up unprompted when I’m not always ready for it. Working in cardiology was meant to be the distraction, since it’s so busy there, but,” he exhaled a small laugh, “instead I’m being asked about Mom’s condition almost every day. I love that he cares, I really do, but he’s definitely not providing me with some kind of escapism, that’s for sure.” And he honestly wouldn’t have it any other way, wouldn’t wish to change anything about the doctor at all.

“Well, that’s something, at least,” Deuce said, looking relieved, “I was worried because of the timing and all. But if you don’t think that’s the case, then that’s good enough for me.”

It wasn’t. At all. But Ace could definitely see why Deuce would think that.

“I want to know more,” Ace admitted, sitting up and resting his chin in his palms, “I want to know who it was that he lost, and I want to be there for him.”

Deuce made a displeased noise, frowning at Ace. “While that’s very sweet of you, you have to focus on yourself first,” he scolded, “and if he’s as great as you say he is, then he would tell you the same thing.”

“I know,” Ace said, “but you know what it’s like. I can’t stop thinking about all the little things I don’t know yet, and I want to learn them. And when I held his hand my heart felt like it was going to _explode_ , Deuce, I like him so much. Is that normal? Am I weird?”

“Yes, but not because of that,” Deuce smirked at Ace’s frown, “that’s normal when people develop proper feelings for each other. I’m so proud of you, finally growing up and liking someone enough to question if it’s love.”

Ace stuck out his tongue at Deuce’s sarcasm.

“Give me your hand for a second,” Ace said, holding out his own on the table, palm up, “I wanna test something.”

Deuce rolled his eyes and placed his hand on Ace’s, watching with a kind of bored interest as Ace moved and linked their fingers together like he had done with Marco. “Feeling those butterflies yet?” Deuce asked.

“No,” Ace said, looking both relieved and pleased, “guess you just don’t do it for me.”

“Oh no, my heart’s breaking.”

“Tell me you love me or something. Go on, try it.”

“Ace,” Deuce said in that flat sarcastic tone he saved only for when his best friend was being stupid, “I’m in love with you. Please sleep with me. Ann doesn’t need to know.”

“Ah, I should have recorded that. Say it again for the phone.”

“Not a chance.”

Ace released Deuce’s hand with a laugh, suddenly feeling that nervousness deep down again that had nothing to do with Deuce’s fake confession. It _was_ Marco, not just the gentle contact. He knew that already, of course, but it never hurt to confirm these things, just in case.

“So what’re you going to do about this?” Deuce asked him, cracking his knuckles in his fist and grinning at the way Ace grimaced at that habit of his. “You gonna tell him?”

“I don’t know,” Ace said, leaning back in his chair with a sigh, “it’s too soon, right? What would you do if someone you liked told you they wanted you after only knowing them for a few days?”

Deuce shrugged. “I told her I thought she was cute too and we went out on our first date there and then,” he said. “I met Ann on the Sunday, spoke to her on the Monday, went on our first date on the Tuesday, and we’ve been together for six years now. It doesn’t hurt to try.”

That was right. Ace had known that they had started dating really quickly, the detail getting lost in the intervening years. But their circumstances had been entirely different, what with them both being university students with no cares in the world other than their studies. Ace, however, carried the sorrow of a terminally sick mother, and Marco… well, who really knew.

Maybe it was best to go into these things without a plan, Ace concluded as Deuce looked at his wristwatch and announced he needed to head off for his train. Maybe it didn’t require any thought and he just needed to roll with whatever situation presented itself to him, to trust his instinct and go with what his gut told him was right.

And right now, it was telling him that that was Marco.

Was it too late to invite the doctor out for dinner again? Probably, Ace reasoned, yet he still typed in the question to his phone and sent it to Marco, impossibly emboldened in that moment by his conversation and admittance of how he felt. Marco probably already had plans, or wasn’t keen on going out yet again so soon, or Ace was being a nuisance, or—

He had to bite his lip to stop himself giggling like an idiot when Marco’s reply pinged up on the screen far too quickly, reading: _phone conference just ending, I’ll meet you in the multistorey top level?_

Yep, he had it so bad.

He sure hoped Franky and the guys wouldn’t mind him skipping out on gym tonight…

* * *

Thursday passed entirely too fast for Roger’s liking, finding himself subjected to ever-rising pangs of anxiety every time he caught sight of the time. His meetings flew by for perhaps the first time in his life, not one of the tedious things dragging on for a change and leaving him looking blankly at his notes, alone, once everyone had left the meeting room.

He was so nervous. He could admit to as much now, finally recognising his nausea as fear and not, in fact, the beginnings of a violent bout of D&V. But whatever his physiological state he would still do it, he would still go to her and see her and hopefully, fingers crossed, not break down at the sight of the love of his life slowly dying.

God, he missed her so much. Their huge house rang silent around him at all times now, the music from the radio he played in the kitchen not enough to permeate the aching loneliness of her absence. He had taken to sleeping in one of the guest bedrooms since the day she had left, unable to lie where she had and be reminded that Rouge would never come home again. A part of him wanted to sell the house and move somewhere smaller, somewhere where the memories of her touch did not linger, but equally he could not bear to part with the centre of the life he had built with her.

Roger had contemplated many, many times asking Ace to move back in with him, to give up that little apartment with it’s one small bedroom and minuscule kitchen and return to the family home. The only thing that stopped him was knowing full well that Ace would say no, would not want to come back to live with his father under any circumstances. Especially not now.

Ace had left home a couple of years ago for all the right reasons - at 22 he had been well and truly ready for his own space, and had only delayed because he hadn’t found the thought of living completely alone to be appealing. That friend of his with the glasses had ended up moving in with his girlfriend right when Ace had originally been planning on asking him to find a place to rent together, successfully setting Ace back by a year and leading to some very emotional talks with Rouge about whether he himself would ever find someone. As far as Roger was aware, Glasses-Boy never knew that Ace had spent ages working out budgets and researching areas around the city’s hospital that would give his friend safe access to work even during the middle of the night on his mad 12 AM starts.

But regardless of Ace’s feelings towards him, Roger did honestly want him home. Hell, he wanted to talk to him properly and tell him how much he loved him, his only son, and how proud he was of him for handling this all so well. Roger wanted a lot of things, not a single one of them being attainable with his vast wealth. He didn’t need - or want - money. He wanted his wife and son back home and happy again.

Roger tried to distract himself with thoughts of Ace as he left his office and made his way over to the multistorey, jaw set rigid with determination because this time he was going to succeed. He _was_ going to do it.

He got into his car - a step further than last time - and started the engine. So far, so good. And this time, that blond doctor wasn’t around to see him claim victory over his own nerves.

Roger had noticed the doctor watching him from his car that Tuesday, and Roger knew exactly who he was. Not by name - that small detail escaped him and wasn’t important enough for him to try and recall - but he knew him by division and by speciality. He was a cardiologist, he was sure of it, recognising him from a meeting some months back where each speciality had sent a representative to speak on their behalf. As was so boringly routine, two of the surgeons had kicked up an argument against one of the medical gastroenterologists and a physician in elderly care, whining about funding and how surgery was infinitely more important than whatever they were taking up room for. The cardiologist hadn’t said a word - the only one from the medical division to not react to surgery’s bitching - and had just watched the exchange with a bored expression. Roger had privately thought he had the right idea to not get involved.

Roger grasped onto this stray thought as he drove, desperately trying to distract himself with something so mundane so as to not panic and let the anxiety take control.

That doctor probably knew Ace, Roger realised, given that that was where Ace was based now. Roger had seen to it that his son was moved to wherever he showed interest, shouting down his protests that he would interview fairly like anyone else and handling his transfer paperwork personally. It had definitely been a misuse of his position, he knew that, but it had been one tiny portion of his life that he was still in control of, something useful that he could still do for his son. It was a shame that Ace hadn’t seen it the same way, calling him interfering.

Maybe he was.

The tires of Roger’s car squeaked as he pulled into the car park of the hospice. He glanced over the other cars there already, noting with the faintest hint of relief that Ace’s crumbly second-hand red Peugeot was not present; why the man had turned down Roger’s offer of a brand new, far better car was still beyond him, saving up on his own to get his little 308.

Roger slammed the door of his car shut with unnecessary force, shoving a hand through his thick hair and taking in the sight of the hospice. It was a beautiful building, old and classy and renovated to modern standards, set far enough out of the way of the nearby town to allow for peace, yet close enough for the residents to get to the shops with the care staff or their visitors should they want to. Roger knew (thanks to Ace’s text updates) that soon after Rouge had moved in she had walked with Ace to the town, stopping for coffee before going to a flower shop.

Ah, he should have bought her flowers. Was it too late to quickly go into that town and find the shop that Ace had said Rouge fell in love with? Roger hesitated, confident that if he left now for any reason he would not find the strength to return.

He swallowed, exhaled a breath to calm himself, and walked up to the front doors.

The receptionist looked up as he approached, smiling warmly at the intimidating glower Roger knew had to be set on his face. He couldn’t find the strength to smile back.

“Good afternoon,” the middle-aged receptionist said, “are you here to visit someone?”

Roger nodded, not trusting his voice to remain steady. He could feel his hands beginning to shake and felt furious with himself for it. This was ridiculous. This was absurd. If Ace could do this multiple times a week, then by God he could do it himself today.

He suddenly realised he was sweating.

The receptionist pushed a small book towards him that was full of names, dates, and signatures. “Please fill out the visitor’s book, if you don’t mind,” she said cheerfully, and when Roger looked at her blankly she added, “it’s for fire safety more than anything, so we know who’s in the building at any given time. All these rules and regulations,” she tutted and rolled her eyes, smiling at him. Roger attempted a smile back.

His heart gave a lurch as he went to write his name, catching sight of Ace’s dated two days previous a few lines above. He scanned up, then turned the page over to the previous one, seeing his son’s signature repeated again and again, dated every other day or occasionally every three days. Proof that he really did come here, that he really was with his mother as often as he said. Not that Roger had ever doubted him - why would he? - but to see his scruffy scrawl of a signature beside his printed name over and over… something threatened to well up inside Roger. He turned the page back and touched Ace’s most recent entry, feeling the tiny indent that the black pen had made as Ace had run it over the paper.

“Ah, yes,” the receptionist said, watching Roger the entire time, “that young man comes here all the time. Such a nice boy. He brought us girls some muffins recently, said he thought we would like them. They went down a treat, let me tell you! Do you know him?”

Roger ducked his head to avoid her searching gaze, focusing on writing his name. “Yes,” he managed, his voice barely a croak in his throat, “he’s my son.”

“Oh, how _wonderful_ ,” the receptionist exclaimed, and Roger couldn’t help glancing up as she clapped her hands together, “Rouge _will_ be happy to see you!”

The receptionist - Mary, her name tag read - led Roger down a long, airy corridor that had floor-length windows running the length of it, letting the late afternoon sun pour in. They passed a sitting area full of homely couches and chairs where a resident was chatting with people that Roger assumed to be his family. He caught the man’s eye and nodded at him before looking away quickly; the relaxed, peaceful gaze of the terminally ill man set him on edge for some bizarre reason.

“Here we are,” Mary said gently, coming to a halt at a room that bore Rouge’s name along with a drawing of a red hibiscus flower, “shall I see if she’s ready for visitors, or would you like to go on in first?”

Roger wiped at his forehead, dragging his palm over the sweat that beaded there. She was on the other side of that door. She was here, and she was breathing, alive, having no idea that her husband was so close to her for the first time in so long. He tried to calm himself but felt the fear grip his heart like a fist, leaving him feeling curiously choked and light-headed.

“I’ll wait,” was all he managed.

He honestly wanted to leave as Mary nodded kindly and knocked on the door twice. His body felt numb and yet also vaguely like he was floating, like this wasn’t reality, as Mary’s voice drifted to him as if from far away. “Rouge, dear?” he heard her say, “I have a visitor here for you. Would you like me to let him in?”

Roger couldn’t hear Rouge’s response, but it must have been positive as Mary turned back to him and said with a smile, “whenever you’re ready. She’s just finishing up the chapter of her book.”

On some distant plane of thought Roger was aware that he should thank the receptionist, that she hadn’t had to accompany him all the way down here in the first place and could have just given him directions to Rouge’s room. Perhaps she knew from Ace, or maybe Rouge herself, that Roger coming here was a big deal for him, or maybe she had figured it out for herself, finding it unusual that Rouge’s husband had never visited yet understanding why.

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered other than stepping into that room.

Roger took a deep breath and moved forwards.

His breath caught in his throat at the sight of her lying there, looking thinner and paler than when he had last seen her the day Ace had brought her here. She was bathed in the warm glow of the sun from the window of her room, making her look as if she were some kind of angel visiting from above.

Roger’s hands shook as Rouge carefully placed her bookmark to her page and closed her book. She looked up with a smile, so very obviously expecting to see her son, and her soft brown eyes went wide as they locked with his.

He couldn’t move. He couldn’t say anything. And neither could she, apparently, simply staring at him as if to blink meant to lose him in that instant. Roger felt simultaneously cold and hot, as if ice was freezing his insides yet sweat rolled down his back under his shirt.

“Roger,” Rouge breathed after several tense seconds, her voice thin to his ears, “I’ve missed you.”

And everything that had held him back, every fear, every ounce of pain, everything that he had built up to guard himself from something that he could never hope to stop from coming for him shattered in an instant at her words. It fell to his feet, freeing him and giving way to the surge of love, of complete and utter adoration for his wife, for the one and only love of his life, and he gasped for breath like a dying man.

He strode towards her, eyes alive with determination and a hardened resolve, and she looked back at him with the exact same expression as he dropped to his knees beside her bed, ignoring the chair, pulling her in for a hug that he hoped would be gentle enough for her fragile body.

Rouge ignored his attempt to handle her like precious glass, throwing her arms around his shoulders and holding him as tight as she could manage. She was weak, he could feel it, but beyond that he felt her heart beating against him, frantic and pained and yearning for him.

And he broke.

Roger buried his face into Rouge’s thin shoulder and let the tears come, let them fall unhindered to stream down his cheeks and nose. His shoulders shook and his breath left his lungs in a wheeze, and she was no better off against him, clawing at the back of his shirt and shaking in his arms. He didn’t care how he looked, he didn’t give a damn if the whole world saw him right now, because nothing mattered at all except for her, for the feel of her again and her good heart and her lips pressing a kiss to his wet cheek.

He tried to speak, tried to tell her he was sorry, he was so, _so sorry_ for abandoning her, that he would never think of leaving her again. But the words would not come, his throat too tight to the waves of emotion and the shuddering breaths he could barely pull from the air. He cupped the back of her head and held her as close as he could to himself, tried to speak again but could only manage a vague, wet gurgle.

She knew what he was trying to say.

“It’s OK,” she whispered, kissing his shaking shoulder, her breath labored under her own tears, “it’s OK, my love. Everything’s OK.”

It wasn’t. It never would be. Never again.

But in that moment, for that day, at least, he believed her. She was here, she was real, and she was holding him as he howled against her skin with pain he had never known before. It went beyond what he felt upon learning her diagnosis. It eclipsed the weeks, months of denial and numbness. It was everything he should have felt, delivered all at once.

It would be worth it. It would be so worth it. Because now he had her, and he would treasure every second with her, and he would love her until he could love no more, and then some.

* * *

Ace hurried through the double glass doors of the hospice, smiling at Mary as he grabbed up the pen to dash off his entry into the visitor’s book.

He’d got held up at work by accident, completely losing track of time as he had found a terrible excuse to sidle into Marco’s office (“can you read Dr. Thatch’s writing here? ‘Cause I can’t”) and proceed to flirt like his life depended on it. Marco had flirted back, and Ace had _maybe_ giggled a little too high-pitched at something very unfunny the doctor had said before he had happened to catch sight of the time on Marco’s computer and raced off after a hasty apology and explanation.

He really hoped Rouge didn’t mind him being a little late today. He figured once he gave her the gossip from the last couple of days she would forgive him - Rouge was well and truly invested in the ‘love story’, as she called it, that was blossoming in her son’s life.

“Well hello, Ace!” Mary beamed at her favorite visitor, “and how are you today?”

“Good, thanks,” Ace said a little breathlessly, “yourself?”

“Oh, I’ve had the _best_ afternoon,” she said happily, “simply brilliant.”

“That’s great,” Ace replied distractedly, not really taking in what she said in his haste. He flipped open the book and started to write his name as usual, but something about the name above his caught his attention.

Ace blinked, confused.

 _Roger Gold_.

Dated today, barely an hour ago.

And there was no entry next to the ‘sign out’ time column.

He had visited her. He had done it. Roger had really gone and done what he had promised and he was _still here right now_. Ace looked up at Mary, wide-eyed, and she beamed back at him.

“The best afternoon I’ve had in months,” she said calmly.

Ace dropped the pen and bolted for Rouge’s room; Mary didn’t even bother to shout after him that running wasn’t allowed. She’d let it slide just this once.

Ace tore down the corridor and came to an abrupt stop at his mother’s door, gasping for breath and buzzing with adrenaline. He swallowed, trying to gather himself before entering, stopping his hand from reaching for the handle and just barging in without hesitation. If Roger was inside then he needed to be cautious, because he had absolutely no idea what state his father would be in right now.

But he _had_ to confirm he was there with his own eyes.

Ace took another steadying breath before opening the door slowly, listening for any sounds of crying, or arguing, or anything at all.

But all he heard was Rouge’s voice, soft and loving, singing something indistinct.

He pushed the door open wider and entered.

He drank in the sight that greeted him hungrily, his chest constricting. Roger was sat in the chair beside Rouge’s bed, the chair pulled as close as he could get it to her, and he had his head in her lap and arms around her midsection. She sang to him a song that Ace recognised from his childhood, the one from a film that Rouge loved that she would always sing after bathtime. She would wrap Ace up in a huge, fluffy towel and hold him in her lap, rocking him back and forth gently as she sang to him. He had forgotten this memory completely until now, until he heard that song again.

Rouge looked up and saw him standing there, watching them, and she smiled at her son. Without pausing, she raised a finger to her lips to indicate Ace had to stay silent. He watched as she ran her fingers through her husband’s hair lovingly, combing through the thick locks that she had used to trim herself before she had got ill. And still she sang, her voice quavering slightly:

“Somewhere over the rainbow  
Way up high  
There’s a land that I heard of  
Once in a lullaby

Somewhere over the rainbow  
Skies are blue  
And the dreams that you dare to dream  
Really do come true”

It was beautiful in Ace’s opinion, hearing his mother’s voice singing once again; he bit his lip and pressed his fingers to his mouth to keep silent, to stop himself sniffing at the touching sight. Part of him wanted to go and join them, to settle on Rouge’s other side and cuddle up to her like he used to do so long ago, and perhaps make peace with his father and hold him too. But the longer he watched Rouge running her fingers through Roger’s hair, the more obvious it became that he was interrupting something intimate, a moment meant just for the two of them.

There would be time to talk to her later. The chance to reconcile with Roger would present itself at some point, too. This was by no means Ace’s last chance to see them together, and he knew, with absolute certainty, that Roger would now come to see Rouge regularly, perhaps daily.

The strain and ache of it all drained from Ace as he backed out of the room, mouthing ‘love you’ to Rouge when she smiled gently at him. He could now share it with his father at long last. It wasn’t entirely on him anymore, and just the thought of that gave him some relief.

The tears came silently as he left the hospice, hot and insistent down his cheeks. Tears of relief, of a strange, ill-formed happiness, and not of sorrow. He got back into his car and sighed, running his fingers through his hair and breathing deep, slow, steadying breaths. He felt strange, the emotions running into one and confusing him.

Ace pulled out his phone and, without really thinking it through first, called Marco. He needed to hear him, needed him to help sort out this confusing mix of happiness, relief, and something far more undefinable, and he wiped at his eyes as the call connected.

“Ace?” Marco sounded worried already, probably because he knew Ace had gone straight to the hospice after picking up his car from home.

“Hey,” Ace said, trying to keep his voice steady, “sorry for calling. Are you busy?”

“No, no, I’m just about to go home. Is everything OK?”

Ace smiled, touched once again by the fact that Marco cared so much. “Dad’s with Mom right now,” he said, and his voice cracked despite trying so hard to sound normal, “he went to see her like he said.”

He heard Marco gasp, and Ace pressed his free palm to his face, trying to keep it together.

“I’m so _relieved_ ,” he sighed into the phone, “she looked happier than I’ve seen her for so long, Marco. He had his head in her lap and she was singing to him. Picture perfect, y’know? Thank God he did it. I’m just so—” he swallowed, the lump that had settled in his throat seeming to swell, “I’m so—”

And he heaved a sob, trying with all his might to keep himself calm, but it was close to impossible.

“Are you OK to drive?” Marco asked, and Ace could hear the clips on his briefcase being snapped closed in the background, “no, of course you’re not. Wait there, I’ll come and get you; send me a pin of your location.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Ace breathed a laugh despite himself, “I’m fine, I’m just emotional. It’s like a… a dam’s been broken inside me or something. I was so worried h-he’d never see her again. But he’s there, and sh-she’s so _happy_ , Marco, fuck, she’s—”

Another deep, rattling breath in, released slowly as Marco took the opportunity to speak.

“Seriously, wait there.” His tone was authoritative, the subject not up for debate. “I’ll drop you off tomorrow to pick up your car. Let me know where you are and I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”

Ace smiled, aching to see him yet not wanting to cause a fuss. “I’m not ruining your plans for the evening, am I?”

He heard the door of Marco’s office shut and the jingle of keys from underneath the doctor’s incredulous huff of laughter. “I don’t think drinking myself to sleep counts as a plan.”

The bitterness in his tone stung, and Marco seemed to realise this, as he added, “sorry, that was totally unnecessary. Look, it’s OK. I want to do this.”

Ace finally agreed, sending him the location information as requested once he had hung up. He laid his forehead to the steering wheel with a sigh and worked to control his breathing properly, still not fully understanding why he couldn’t calm himself. This was _good_ , it was exactly what he had been pushing for for so long, and it was precisely what they all needed.

It wasn’t long before Ace saw the familiar silver Mercedes pulling into the car park, and he got out of his car to greet Marco. He trotted over to him as he got out too, smile in place and tears gone.

“Hey, thanks for this,” Ace said as Marco turned to him, “it’s really good of you. Sorry to be such a—”

And then, out of nowhere, Marco pulled him into a hug so tight that the air in Ace’s lungs was forced out.

And the tears began to well up again.

“Don’t,” Ace mumbled, trying to push Marco away in a half-hearted shove to his shoulder, “I’m fine now, really.”

“You’re not.”

Marco pulled him back in, his arms tight around his waist and his chin resting on Ace’s shoulder, and Ace shyly moved to loop his arms around Marco’s neck, hugging him back. He nuzzled his face into the doctor’s shoulder, cheeks hot despite the situation and feeling the tension in his body slip away little by little. The tears followed as well, leaving him despite his best efforts to rein them in, and he squeezed Marco a little tighter.

“I’m so relieved,” Ace repeated, his voice muffled into Marco’s shirt, “he would have regretted it if he hadn’t— I would have never forgiven him—”

“I know.” Marco’s voice reverberated through Ace’s body, low and comforting and wrapping him in a sense of complete security along with the hug. Ace relaxed against him a little more, closing his eyes as Marco began to comb his fingers through his hair gently, not unlike how Rouge had been doing to Roger. “Give him tonight to be with her, and then take it from there. It might take him a day, it might take him a week, but he’ll contact you, you’ll see. Let him do it; don’t let him know you saw him today.”

Ace nodded against him, understanding. That had been Roger’s moment with his wife, not something that should have been intruded in on or shared with anyone else. It was private and important that it remained as such.

“Thank you,” Ace said quietly.

Marco patted his head affectionately. “Any time,” he said gently, “I’ll always come for you.”

And Ace had never, ever wanted to kiss someone as badly as he did in that moment. He felt himself fall a little more in love with the doctor at these words, love his selflessness and his care. He wanted to pull him down and press their lips together and tell him that no one had ever made him feel so secure, so cared for, in his life.

But instead he cried tears of emotional fatigue, of relief, and of gratitude, hot and salty and wet into Marco’s shirt once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Rouge sings is from the film The Wizard of Oz ♥


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yikes, this is long. And yet it feels rushed. I don't know how I always manage to do this to myself ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> One theme I am trying to convey in this fic is the importance of platonic and familial love as well as romantic love. Thatch and his family are important to Marco, and I absolutely love the idea of Thatch being a dad. He would be a great dad... 
> 
> This chapter discusses the past death of a character. This shouldn't really come as a surprise at this point in the story, but fair warning anyways.  
> There is also reference to past struggles with eating.

Marco awoke with a start, momentarily panicked by the heavy weight that pressed at his chest and throat before his brain caught up and realised it was only Dawn, her nose barely an inch from his in her bid to rouse him for her breakfast. Dusk completed the picture by crying pitifully from her spot on the nightstand beside the alarm clock, whining for him to hurry up and feed them.

The sun streaming through the small sliver of a gap in the curtains told him that the cats were well overdue their breakfast, and Marco was vaguely impressed that they had held out so long for him. He glanced at his clock as he nudged Dawn off his chest, noting with a leap of panic that it was almost 8 AM.

Ah, but it was Saturday; he wasn’t late for work. But he would be late for Emily’s big day if he dawdled too much, seeing as he was due at Thatch’s house for 9:30.

“All right, already,” he muttered at the cats as they purred and circled his ankles, threatening to trip him up when he stood. Marco rubbed at his eyes with the back of his fist and sighed through his nose, gathering himself before making his way to the kitchen.

His thoughts drifted to and lingered on Ace as he fed the cats. The younger man had been unusually energetic the day before, talking too animatedly with Nami and laughing just a bit too loudly at Thatch’s nonsense. It wasn’t hard to guess why, but when Marco tried to have a quiet word with him after clinic in the afternoon, Ace had dazzled him with a painfully fake smile and thanked him yet again for taking him to collect his car from the hospice that morning.

“You know you don’t have to deal with this on your own, Ace,” Marco had said in a hushed voice, “I meant what I said. It’s OK to feel mixed up and confused about this sort of stuff.”

Ace had given him a peculiar look at this, pinched and strained and sad at _his_ expense for some unknown reason. “Did anyone ever tell _you_ that?”

Marco hadn’t understood, and Ace had gripped his shoulder briefly with a sad smile before leaving him alone in his office.

He still didn’t understand, he admitted to himself as he turned on the hot water of the shower.

Ace had seemed perfectly normal later on into the night when Marco had text him. Ace gave him a detailed account of his brief visit to the hospice, going again as he had missed out the day before, and had decided to leave before Roger was due (Marco was almost as thrilled as Ace to learn that Roger did indeed intend to see Rouge every day). He had then gone to the gym, apparently, and had ‘sweat his balls off’ with his friends there before going home to ‘eat everything he could find’. Marco had then been left quite alone with the thought of Ace, sweat-drenched, panting from hard exertion and ravenous for something that sated a different kind of hunger. Marco had taken care of himself far too quickly with just this mental image for company.

He dried himself off and brushed his teeth, stepping around Dawn when she wandered in through the open door with a chirp.

Fifteen minutes later, Marco was in his car and pulling out of his parking space at the back of the apartment complex, Emily’s present safely stowed in the back and his thoughts refusing to leave Ace. Marco had sent him a text reading ‘good morning’ - a first for either of them - just before leaving the apartment, and had received a photo from Ace in response. Marco had stifled a snort at the photo of Ace’s frowning, sleepy face, still in bed and very clearly not thinking it was a good morning at all. Marco had sent him an onslaught of cat pictures as an apology for waking him up, despite it being almost 9 AM.

He drove the achingly familiar route to Thatch’s countryside house outside the city, pulling up on the driveway of the ivy-covered five-bedroomed home just over half an hour later. It was a beautiful building and one that he loved more than his own home, if he could call it that, the big house having been a place of happiness and laughter in his life during times where they could be found nowhere else.

Marco grinned to himself as he rang the doorbell and heard the thud of feet thundering down the hallway. “Daddy!” shrieked Bianca’s voice from the other side of the door, “Uncle Marco’s here!”

The lock clicked and the door was flung open to reveal the middle Thatch sibling, beaming up at Marco and bouncing on the spot in her pajamas. Before Marco could even say hello, Emily, also in her pajamas, was elbowing past her sister with a plate of toast smothered in peanut butter in her hands; she thrust the plate into Marco’s chest, who took it, and said happily, “there’s your breakfast! Daddy said you have to eat it all before you do anything else! Where’s my present?”

She looked around eagerly as Marco chuckled, stepping over the threshold and closing the door behind him with his free hand. “It’s in the car,” he said, letting Bianca grab him by the hand and tug him down the hall to the kitchen, “I was going to wish you a happy birthday before I bring it round, but if I have to eat all of this first…”

Emily looked horrified at having to wait for her present and raced past them into the enormous kitchen, yelling, “Daddy! Go get my present out of Uncle Marco’s car!”

“Get it yourself!” came Thatch’s reply, and when Marco rounded the corner into the kitchen he saw Thatch sitting at the oak table, tablet in hand and trying to read the news. The remnants of his own breakfast lay in the middle of the table along with two bowls of mushy cereal, the girls apparently having abandoned their meal in favor of rioting excitedly. It was nice to see him in casual clothes and not fighting to knot a tie for the first time in weeks. “I’m not yours to command as you wish, dear daughter,” he added as she came skidding to a halt beside him.

“I can’t get it, Daddy, I’m in my PJs,” Emily rolled her eyes at Thatch.

“So go and get dressed like I keep telling you to do,” Thatch retorted, nodding at Marco in greeting, “you do realise you have to get dressed at some point if you want to go out today, right?”

Emily sighed dramatically - _eight going on eighteen?_ Marco thought with a smile - and went back to bouncing from one foot to the other. “What did you get me? What did you get me?” she trilled at Marco as he pulled out a chair and sat opposite Thatch, laying his mountain of toast in front of himself.

“Go get dressed and find out,” Marco said, smiling and raising an eyebrow at her as she looked wounded by his betrayal, “I can’t bring it in the house anyway. And if you bring down your brush I’ll do your hair in French plaits again - how about that?”

That had been one hell of a learning curve for him - six months ago when Marco had stayed with the family for New Year’s, Emily had pestered him into Googling how to do French plaits and had insisted he do her hair up in them for her. Fiona and Ed, it transpired, had both tried in the past and were terrible at it, but somehow Marco got the hang of it and had done a pretty good job. Then Bianca had wanted her hair plaited, too. And then so had Sophia. And finally, giggling like her daughters, Fiona had sat down on the floor at Marco’s feet and handed him two hair ties, too.

Emily bounced away, twirling like a ballerina around her sister and leaping out of the kitchen with a kind of pirouette. Marco chuckled as he watched her go, moving his arm out of the way for Bianca as she clambered into his lap. She helped herself to a piece of Marco’s toast, munching happily and smiling at her father when Thatch gave her his signature Dad Look.

“That’s not for you, young lady,” he said seriously.

Bianca giggled, taking another big bite of the toast. “Uncle Marco isn’t eating it.”

“Marco, eat.”

Marco did as he was told.

From above them they heard Emily’s voice yell, “Soph! Uncle Marco’s here! Get outta bed already!” followed by the sound of indistinct shouting from her oldest sister.

Thatch heaved a sigh and locked the tablet, giving it up as a lost cause. “She’s been up since 4,” he grumbled, and now that Marco looked at him properly he could see the bags under his eyes, “I have no idea where she’s getting that energy from.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less on her birthday, to be honest,” Marco said around his piece of toast. He looked at Bianca, returning the smile she beamed at him. “Are you looking forward to going on all the rides today?”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Bianca said excitedly, “I’m gonna spin one of those teacups so hard that Soph throws up.”

Thatch threw back his head and roared with laughter, drowning out Marco’s own laugh. “Atta girl, Bee!”

“Ed, really,” came a new voice from the doorway, “don’t encourage that sort of behavior.”

Fiona, Thatch’s wife, walked into the kitchen, stopping beside Marco to bend and kiss him on the cheek; he reciprocated, hand going to her waist briefly. She laid a hand to his shoulder, giving her middle daughter a kiss on the cheek too when she whined for one. She, like her daughters, had thick auburn hair, although darker and shorter than all three of them with it coming to a rest at her shoulders. Fiona stood an entire foot shorter than Marco and Thatch and was of a slim, toned build thanks to her tennis sessions she attended. She was dressed, too, indicating that parading around in pajamas was not a family-wide event that morning.

“Why not?” Thatch huffed at his wife, “it’s all good fun, Fee, making memories and all that nonsense.”

Fiona just gave him a stern look in response before turning back to Marco.

“It’s good to see you, Marco,” Fiona said warmly, her gentle brown eyes meeting his cobalt blue, “it’s been a while since you last visited. How’re things?”

It had barely been a month since he had last agreed to go home with Ed and visit the family after work, but by their standards it was a long time. There had been a time where Marco was around almost every weekend, sometimes during the week, too, if Thatch could convince him. Marco felt a rush of affection for Fiona, the woman he considered to be his sister as much as Whitey was, subconsciously rubbing over her lower back gently like he used to do during the third trimester of each of her pregnancies, the action so natural and familiar to them both.

“Good,” he said, and he meant it for once, “work’s keeping me busy, and the cats are happy, as always.” He deliberately neglected to mention anything about Ace.

“I wanna see them again,” Bianca pouted, and Marco ruffled her already messy hair.

“You can,” he said, then looked to Thatch. “Just drop the girls off whenever they want, Ed, you know I’m always up for having them over.”

But Thatch only frowned at him as if thinking hard about something. Marco ignored it, too used to Thatch’s many expressions and ponderings and deep thoughts to worry about pressing him for a revelation; Thatch would come out with it when he was ready. Fiona noticed too, saying, “don’t think too hard, dear, or you’ll give yourself an aneurysm,” with a cheeky grin. She left Marco’s side to busy herself with making coffee, holding up a mug in a silent question to see if Marco wanted one too - he nodded, never one to turn down caffeine.

What sounded like a herd of baby elephants came crashing down the stairs, and next moment Emily tumbled back into the room, waist-length auburn hair a wild mess and her denim knee-length skirt on back to front. Marco reached out with a snort of laughter and tugged it round the right way by the belt loops, earning a quick, “thanks!” from Emily.

“Soph’s awake, but she’s not happy,” Emily said, sounding breathless.

“I’m not surprised,” Fiona commented, “you did scream at her.”

Emily drew herself up and said in a lofty voice, “she has no business having a lie-in on my birthday,” earning a shrill giggle from Bianca. “And here, Uncle Marco,” Emily held out her hairbrush and a fistful of hair ties for him, “can you do my hair now?”

“I guess that’s one way to get her to listen,” Thatch muttered, reaching out and nudging Marco’s plate towards him in encouragement for him to eat more, “bribe her with having her hair done all pretty.”

“Will you do mine too, Uncle Marco?” Bianca asked, wide-eyed and pleading as Emily scrambled into the chair next to Marco.

“Sure,” he said, taking another piece of toast and munching on it in one hand, Emily’s brush in the other, “after you’ve got dressed, of course. And tell Sophia I’ll do hers too, if she wants.” May as well go all out and be a proper hairdresser for the morning.

Bianca wriggled off her uncle’s lap and left the room with a spring in her step, not quite as frantically hyper as her younger sister but still cheerful. Marco shook his head with a smile as she thundered up the stairs, and he had to wonder if she was doing it on purpose to further irritate the oldest sister.

“So where’s this new phone of yours, Emily?” Marco asked as Emily turned her back to him, giving him access to her long hair, “I thought you’d be all over that.”

“It’s charging,” she said happily, and Thatch grunted too.

“She drained the battery already,” he said, “no idea how - she’s only had it for, what, three hours?”

“Bee and I were taking videos of each other,” Emily said in a tone that suggested she thought this should be obvious.

Marco huffed a laugh, genuinely impressed. “Still, that’s pretty fast.”

Emily shrugged, then said with a whine, “hurry up, I wanna get my present.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

He set to work after cramming the rest of the toast into his mouth, brushing through Emily’s long red hair as gently as he could and working the knots and tangles out while she told him all about her friends who would be going along to her ice skating party the next day. Marco secretly felt thankful that he didn’t have to attend that one, the thought of thirty children all hurtling around the ice rink at breakneck speed not something that made him envious of Thatch. In fact, his best friend looked positively daunted by the looming party, his face lined with regret when Emily mentioned a particular boy she had invited who enjoyed taking down as many kids as he could in one slide.

“Maybe you should check in with ER and see who’s working tomorrow,” Marco grinned at Thatch, “warn them they might be dealing with some sliced off fingers around midday.”

“Oh, shut up.”

Marco was tying off the first plait on the right side of Emily’s head when she changed the subject entirely, bringing the conversation to a topic that Marco was always eager to discuss: Ace. He struggled to not light up at the mention of the young man’s name, his fingers faltering as he divided up the strands of hair at the beginning of the second plait.

“Is Ace coming here first, Daddy?” Emily asked innocently, not noticing how Marco fumbled suddenly, “or is he meeting us there?”

“There,” Thatch grunted, chin in his palm and eyeing Marco suspiciously. “There’s no way I’m letting anyone from work come here to be mobbed by you girls. You’re violent in your home territory.”

“We didn’t mob Uncle Marco,” Emily sniffed.

“You would have done if he’d had your present on him.” A grin curled at Marco’s lips at Thatch’s words, knowing it was true - Emily was not known to be gentle on her birthdays or at Christmas. “But no, he’ll meet us at the gate and then get dragged off by you, no doubt.”

“Does Ace know I’ll be there, by the way?” Marco asked, doing his absolute best to keep his tone neutral.

“Why?” Thatch asked at once, gaze flickering to Fiona as she tutted loudly at him. “What does it matter?”

Marco shrugged. He didn’t like the way Thatch was looking at him now; there was too much understanding in those hazel eyes. “It doesn’t,” he said quickly, fingers slipping through Emily’s hair again and hastily grabbing at the strands to stop the plait unravelling, “but if I were him, I’d be kind of intimidated if I suddenly found myself in the company of so many people I didn’t know well. He’s never met Fee, he barely knows the kids, and he…” Marco trailed off, struggling to lie in the face of Thatch’s expectant look. “Well, he _knows_ me, I guess, but not that well.”

“Come off it,” Thatch snorted, “you can’t fool me. Ace doesn’t shut up about you when we’re in my office.” Marco felt hot all of a sudden, heat rising in his chest and cheeks. “You’re literally all he’s talked about this last week; I’m bored of listening to it, if I’m honest. Yes, I know you’re great, yes, I know you’re kind and whatever else he said, but there comes a point where enough’s enough, right?”

“Just admit you’re jealous because the attention isn’t focused on you,” Fiona smirked at her husband, earning a mock look of outrage from Thatch.

“Quite the opposite!” Thatch said indignantly, “I’m happy that the lad’s finally perked up. He’s been miserable ever since he joined, even though he was obviously trying to hide it. Do you know what’s up with that?” He looked to Marco again, frowning. Marco avoided his eyes.

“No,” he lied, not wanting to break Ace’s trust and tell anyone about Rouge, not when Roger had made it plain to his son that no one outside of the family was supposed to know, “like I said, we don’t know each other well.”

“No, he doesn’t know _Vista_ well. Or Cornelia,” Thatch corrected, leaning in on his folded arms, “or the other doctors, the nurses, hell, not even the reg he shares an office with. Never mentions ‘em. I’ve never seen him talk to them. But _you_ ,” he wiggled an index finger at Marco, earning an annoyed frown, “are a different matter. He’s constantly lurking around your office, or talking to you in there, or asking me questions about you.”

Oh, God, did he really? Marco groaned internally as Emily giggled.

“Do I want to know what he asked about?”

“Sure,” Thatch said, grinning almost evilly at his best friend, “he was _very_ interested in our university days. At first I thought he was interested in me, since, y’know, we’re working together so much, but oh no, mate, no, he wanted to know all the gruesome details I could remember about _you_.”

“Great,” Marco grumbled, and Emily giggled again, “what did you tell him?”

“You remember that night in first year when we stole a shopping cart?”

“Vividly.”

“Yeah, I told him all about how you drunkenly took your pillow and blanket and slept in the cart in the kitchen.” Thatch sighed reminiscently. “And how we wheeled you outside the building and left you there.”

“That’s so mean!” Emily laughed, and even Fiona giggled, “Daddy, someone could have stolen him!” What a way to phrase it.

“Trust me,” Thatch chuckled, grinning wide at Marco’s frown, “no one would have wanted a hungover Marco in a shopping cart. He woke up screaming the next morning, couldn’t figure out where he was at first. Good lord, I miss university.”

“Maybe I should tell him about the time when you cried because we hid your mattress,” Marco shot back in retaliation, “or when we lost you in that club and later found you screaming at seagulls outside McDonald’s.”

“And that time I locked you in the utility closet.”

“And all those girls that turned you down when you tried it on in bars.”

Emily couldn’t stop giggling, her eyes watering and fingers pressed to her mouth in amazed disbelief that her father and uncle had ever been so silly in their youth. Marco had deliberately kept the recalled memories clean because of her presence and he knew fully well that Thatch had held back too, avoiding the dirtier topics such as when he had walked in on Thatch completely naked and handcuffed to his headboard while his girlfriend at the time had run to the kitchen in search of whipped cream. In Marco’s defence he hadn’t even known she was in the shared house, and he had simply wandered into Thatch’s room after his evening lecture like any other day. Marco still teased him about it even now.

“Anyway, getting back on topic,” Thatch continued, waving a hand airily as if to dispel the memories, “Ace turned the girls down when they first asked him to come along today.”

Marco looked at him at last, frowning. It made sense that Ace had said no, given that he wasn’t family or a close friend and had only met the birthday girl that morning for the first time, and Marco had found it incredibly strange that Thatch would let him come along at all. It was all starting to fall into place, and he wasn’t convinced he liked how much Thatch seemed to know… or guess.

“Dare I ask what made him change his mind?” Marco asked, reaching the end of the plait and securing it with a tie; Emily hopped off the seat beside him and went to check her reflection in the oven’s shiny surface, trying and failing to look at the back of her head.

“It was you.”

Marco sighed through his nose at Thatch’s response. He caught Fiona’s eye; she was grinning at him over the rim of her mug, sipping at her coffee. His heart beat faster than it had any right to, pleased and nervous to learn that his private guess, his tiny little hope, had been correct all along. He had barely entertained the thought, almost convincing himself that Ace really was just easily led by promises of rollercoasters and a fun day out. But this made him dare to hope a little more, to tingle with excitement and anticipation.

“You have got to be joking,” he heard himself say, felt his mouth form the words, but inside he was cheering, thrilled. Thatch smirked at him.

“Nope,” he said, eyes following his youngest daughter as she ran out of the kitchen without warning, screaming for Bianca and Sophia to hurry up and get downstairs because _Daddy’s bullying Uncle Marco and you gotta come watch_. “He changed his mind the moment I mentioned you were coming along. That’s what gave him away more than anything.”

“Gave him away?” Marco couldn’t believe he was walking right into this one, and yet he couldn’t stop himself.

But Thatch just smiled knowingly at him, leaning back in his chair and stretching his legs out under the table.

“Daddy,” Emily chirped as she bounced back into the room, seizing Thatch around the neck and hauling herself into his lap with as much grace as a sack of potatoes, “is Ace Uncle Marco’s boyfriend?”

Oh, children and their complete lack of tact. Marco was visited by the violent urge to fling Emily’s hairbrush at her dad’s face when Thatch smirked at him, looking thoroughly pleased with his daughter’s bluntness. “No,” he sighed, “but I think he’d like him to be.”

“Y’know, sometimes I really don’t like you,” Marco said calmly, making Emily giggle furiously, forever delighted to hear her father insulted. Bianca bounded into the kitchen and leapt into the chair beside Marco suddenly with such force that it skidded back a few inches, and she deposited her own pile of brightly colored hair ties to merge with Emily’s on the wooden table.

“What’s that?” Thatch cupped a hand to an ear, looking like he was straining to hear something, “funny, I don’t hear you denying it, dear brother from another mother.”

“I can’t believe you’re using your daughter’s birthday to play cupid,” Marco shot at Thatch to lure the subject away from his feelings, picking up the brush again and setting to work on Bianca’s hair, taking care not to pull on her long locks.

“He has a point,” Fiona said fairly, raising an eyebrow at Thatch as he spluttered.

“ _They_ asked Ace!” he said, pointing between his two daughters, “it’s not my fault they invited him.”

“You could have said no. You _are_ the adult, y’know.”

“Yeah, Daddy.”

“God, Daddy.”

The ensuing argument was hilarious, Thatch getting himself tied up in knots and trying and failing to retain some dignity as his children and wife verbally poked at him. Despite the fact that Marco was equally amazed and mortified to learn that Thatch had correctly guessed that he liked Ace, he appreciated his efforts all the same.

Sophia finally arrived just as Marco was tying off Bianca’s second plait, blessedly already dressed in jeans that were ripped at the knees and a t-shirt of a band from long before she was born. She threw her arms around Marco’s neck in a tight hug, her wavy hair tickling his face. Of all three children, Sophia was probably the one who Marco had the strongest bond with. That wasn’t to say that he didn’t get on well with the two younger girls - he loved them like his own, after all - but Sophia had always been less hyper, more inclined to deep discussions about the universe and life than trying to climb all over her uncle like he was a jungle gym, and was more into her music than gadgets or causing mayhem like her sisters. Plus, Sophia was the only one of the three who still actually remembered Shanks, although admittedly somewhat vaguely, and she was not afraid to bring him up with Marco whenever she needed to. It was easy to forget, the realisation slipping away in the mess of his own loss, that Shanks had been the girls’ uncle as well, welcomed into the family by their parents as soon as he and Marco had started dating properly ten years ago shortly after Sophia’s first birthday.

“What’re they arguing about?” Sophia asked as she pulled away from Marco, tucking her hair behind her ear. Thatch and the girls were still in full swing, the girls laughing at him as he fell for the bait continuously.

“Something to do with Ace,” Marco said vaguely, not keen on reliving the humiliation again so soon, “the guy that your dad and I know from work who’s coming along today,” he added. _The cute guy that I can’t get out of my head, more like._

“Yeah, I know who he is,” Sophia said, opening a cupboard next to where Thatch and Emily sat and taking out a cereal bar, “I hope he likes getting climbed on, because I can’t see these two going easy on him.” She opened the packet and munched her way through the bar in two big bites, then rummaged in her back pocket for something.

“Do you want me to do your hair?” Marco asked, indicating to Bianca beside him with his thumb, “I’m on a roll this morning.”

Sophia shook her head. “No thanks,” she said, “I’ll have it down today. But you could do my makeup for me instead, if you like.” Sophia held out an eyeshadow palette, eye liner, mascara, and something pink and sparkly that looked like something you were meant to apply to lips, Marco suspected. He looked from the offered items to his niece’s face, wondering if perhaps she actually _wanted_ to go out in public looking like a panda. Probably not.

“I’m gonna have to say no to that,” Marco said with a grin, “I haven’t got the faintest idea how to do makeup. You’d look like something out of a horror movie.”

Thatch whipped around suddenly, tipping his youngest daughter out of his lap and glaring at his oldest. “Makeup?” he asked, and even Marco felt scared by his tone. “You don’t need makeup, Sophia. Go put it away. You’re too young for all of that.”

Sophia huffed an annoyed sound; this was clearly an argument they had had before. “I’m not,” she said, hand on her hip, “all the girls in my class wear it, Dad. I’m eleven, not a baby.”

“Exactly!” Thatch cried, frowning at her, “you’re _only_ eleven!”

But Marco didn’t hear the rest of the battle between father and daughter. Emily took the opportunity to grab him by the hand and pull him up out of his seat, whining that she wanted her present already. He allowed himself to be led out of the kitchen and down the hall, Bianca following them with her hands to his back, leaving behind the explosion of noise as Sophia yelled, “I _am_ old enough for a boyfriend!” Marco didn’t understand what the problem was, personally - surely it was normal for girls of Sophia’s age to start experimenting with makeup and showing an interest in boys?

But the thought was soon wiped from his mind as he handed one very excited birthday girl the key to his car (“you’re too slow, Uncle Marco!”), watching her tearing off to the Mercedes and popping the boot with her older sister in tow. Emily squealed her delight as she tugged the mint green bicycle out by the wheel, further crying happily when she discovered the glittery tassles at the handles. She set it down on the driveway with help from Marco, babbling her thanks and seizing him round the middle in a hug before swinging a leg over her new present and taking off on it. Bianca ran after her, asking her if she could have a go and then wailing when Emily yelled “nope!”. Emily rang the bell on the handle, cackling wildly as she rode great circles around Bianca on the lawn, her plaits streaming out behind her.

The front door swung open again and Sophia flounced out, looking irritated but not upset, thankfully. By the looks of things she and Thatch had reached a compromise of sorts, because her eyelashes were noticeably darker with what Marco could only assume to be mascara. She watched her sister careening around the lawn for a few moments, then seemed to remember what she was doing as she drew a deep breath, pointed at Marco’s car, and shouted, “shotgun Uncle Marco’s front seat!”

Emily _howled_ her fury, raging as Sophia opened the passenger side’s door and deposited herself with a mean grin at her youngest sister. “That’s not fair!” she wailed at Marco, leaping off her bike (Bianca grabbed it up gleefully and took off on it herself) and grabbing him by the arm, “it’s _my_ birthday, and I want to ride along with you!”

“Sorry, Em,” Marco said, patting the furious girl on the back gently, “but she’s in the car already. Unless you can drag her out, I don’t think— no, wait,” he grabbed her by the shoulders as Emily stomped off to do exactly as he had stupidly suggested, “I don’t mean you should actually do it, just… Look, you can have the front seat of your dad’s car, okay? I’m sure Fee won’t mind going in the back just this once. And you can come with me on the way back.”

Emily frowned up at him, tearing her eyes away from her older sister’s gloating grin from the car. “You promise?” she asked, and Marco was a little surprised by how readily she gave in.

“I promise.”

Ten minutes later, everyone was bundled up into the two cars and ready to go. Fiona had packed a bag and stowed it in the boot of Thatch’s car, complete with a change of clothes for each of them in case the worst happened and someone was sick. She agreed to go in the back of the car with Bianca, and Emily was quite happy with the arrangement, choosing her favorite songs on Thatch’s phone to play over the car speakers.

Sophia had come prepared, too. She pulled out her phone as Marco strapped himself in beside her, opening her Spotify app and scrolling through her playlists. Her phone connected to the car’s speakers when she turned the bluetooth on, and before she chose her first song she popped open the glovebox and pulled out two pairs of sunglasses. She handed one to Marco with a grin, sliding a silver pair of aviators onto her face as she did so. Marco took them and put them on too, returning her smile and starting the engine. This was precisely why having Sophia in the car with him was always good fun - her choice in music compromised of bands he had listened to when he was a teenager and so he knew all of the words to whatever she put on, unlike when the two younger girls chose popular music from the last year and Marco had no idea how any of those tracks even qualified as music.

“I hope you’re ready to rock, old man,” Sophia teased as the drums kicked in to Bon Jovi’s ‘Livin On A Prayer’, tilting her aviators down to peer at her uncle over them, “don’t throw your back out, now.”

Marco snorted, the fake taunt a familiar one. “Cheeky kid,” he scolded, revving the engine and earning a squeak of surprise from Sophia, “buckle up and turn it up to 11.”

They sang along loudly as Marco drove, Sophia getting really into it and headbanging to the heavier tunes she chose. It was something that Marco always enjoyed, getting to see his more reserved niece come alive under the influence of what she loved so dearly. She couldn’t share her interests with her sisters very easily, but she could with him.

By the time they pulled up and parked at the amusement park, Sophia’s hair was a wild mess from rocking out and she was pink in the face, giggling and grinning wide as she got out of the car. She brushed her hair off her face and shut the door just as Thatch pulled up on Marco’s side, Emily bouncing away in the passenger seat in her eagerness to get out.

Marco felt like he had left his stomach back at the house all of a sudden as he stowed the two pairs of sunglasses away safely for the next time Sophia wanted to rock. Ace was probably already here, he realised, waiting for them at the entrance. Marco swallowed and took a steadying breath, willing himself to calm down and relax. There was no sense in getting nervous, he knew, but he struggled to contain it.

“Right,” Thatch’s booming voice snapped Marco out of his thoughts, “girls, don’t run off on your own without one of us. We’ve got our tickets already so we don’t need to queue, and Ace says he has his too, so we’ll just meet up and head straight in.” Ah, that brought about an unfamiliar jab of jealousy - Marco’s eyes followed Thatch’s phone as he waved it to illustrate that he had been texting Ace, and the completely unnecessary thought of _he could have text me instead_ flashed through Marco’s mind. How stupid and childish.

It didn’t take long to find him at the entrance to the park, and Marco’s mouth went dry at the sight of him. Ace was in a dark red polo shirt and black knee-length shorts, his dark hair tucked behind one ear again in that way that Marco really liked. Marco noticed with a jolt of surprise that he had a tattoo on his left upper arm, black letters peaking out from the bottom of the sleeve of his top - he had never seen it before, the inked skin always being covered by Ace’s shirts at work, the man favoring long sleeves rolled up to his elbows like Marco did.

Emily, who had been hanging onto Marco’s arm as they walked, squealed with delight upon spotting Ace and tore off to him, bouncing from foot to foot as she greeted him excitedly. Marco watched him with a flutter of excited nerves as Ace bent down to bring himself eye level with Emily, smiling at her as she narrated something to him with her hands. God, he was beautiful when he smiled.

"Ace!" Thatch called cheerfully as their little crowd got within earshot of him, clapping him on the shoulder and gripping him firmly, "glad you could make it, lad. The girls have been so excited to have another person to drag around for the day."

"Daddy," Emily said in a warning tone, " _please_ don't embarrass us in front of Ace."

"Yeah, Dad," Sophia piped up, much to Marco's surprise, "it's not a great first impression." And she held her hand out to the bemused young man; Ace took it, catching Marco's eye and clearly trying not to ask what was going on. "I'm Sophia," she said, shaking Ace's hand, "Dad's told us a lot about you." She glanced at Marco and, much to his horror, she grinned a grin that was not unlike the one Thatch had shot him over breakfast.

She knew. She definitely knew. Marco wouldn't put it past Thatch to have told her everything that he had guessed at and surmised, and it only made Marco feel more nervous than he should have been.

"And I'm Emily!" Emily grabbed Ace's other hand, wringing it enthusiastically, "such a pleasure to meet you, old boy."

"Bianca, my good fellow," Bianca joined in, tugging Ace's right hand out of Sophia's and shaking it too, "absolutely fantastic to see you again, sir."

"Oh, shut it," Sophia snapped as her sisters giggled, cheeks going pink, "you've both met him before, you idiots."

"Uncle Marco!" Emily continued as if she hadn't heard her sister, snatching up Marco's hand with her free one and shaking both his and Ace's at the same time, "positively _marvellous_ of you to join us today!"

Ace laughed at Marco's expression, looking to the doctor like sunshine in human form in that moment. He was so flawlessly gorgeous, so cute right down to the last freckle, and Marco was visited by the intense desire to kiss him immediately. But instead he was released from Emily's grip as Ace was approached by Fiona, and rather than shaking his hand like her daughters had she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on both cheeks.

"It's lovely to meet you, Ace," she said. "Thank you for helping my husband so much at work, he was really struggling on his own with all that work that management gave him. You have no idea what a help you've been."

"It's nothing," Ace said quickly, looking a little surprised by Fiona's kind words, "Dr. Thatch - uh, your husband - is a pleasure to work for, so I'm really enjoying—"

"See?" Thatch interrupted, slinging an arm around Ace's shoulders, "didn't I tell you he's an angel?"

"I wanna hug Ace, too!" Emily cried, throwing her arms around his middle and squeezing him tight.

"Me too!" Bianca copied her sister.

Ace just laughed and let them. He caught Marco's eye again, and Marco could have sworn he saw something in Ace's eyes that begged him to come over and join in the hugs. Marco cleared his throat and struck up a conversation with Sophia about what ride she wanted to go on first instead.

They were through the turn-stile barriers and into the park within minutes, Bianca and Emily taking to Ace far more quickly than Marco had ever seen them do with someone they barely knew, both girls holding one of his hands each and swinging his arms as they walked.

"I'm an only child," Marco overheard Ace telling the girls as he drew nearer to them, "and I've always wanted brothers and sisters. I have my two cousins, Sabo and Luffy, but it's not quite the same."

"We could be your sisters!" Emily offered excitedly, leaning around Ace to peer at Bianca, "couldn't we, Bee?"

"Yeah," Bianca nodded vigorously, "we'll swap you with Soph; you can have her room and live with us!"

Sophia just rolled her eyes as her sisters snorted with giggles. "Perfect," she played along, "I'll move into Uncle Marco's spare room and finally get some peace and quiet away from you two."

"What happened to you girls fighting over who got to be Ace's girlfriend?" Thatch asked, grinning at the girls' look of furious horror; Fiona gave him a light disapproving smack on the arm.

"Oh my _God_ , Daddy," Emily heaved a sigh, "you're _so_ embarrassing."

"Daddy," Bianca gave Thatch a stern look, one eyebrow raised, "do you not remember that circumstances have changed?" Marco didn't like the way she looked at him all of a sudden, and felt a further sense of disquiet when Ace followed her gaze to look at him too. He was sure he could see some kind of understanding dawning on Ace’s face, and he quickly looked away under the pretence that he was studying the length of the queue for a nearby ride.

This was beyond ridiculous, wasn’t it? For the girls to decide to get themselves involved with his love life was something they had never done before, although, granted, there had never been anyone that he had been interested in since his ex. Ace was quite literally the first and only person to interest Marco since Shanks, and perhaps it was because of this that the Thatch family were all so invested in how the relationship panned out all of a sudden. Not that this realisation made the current situation any less awkward.

Ace, luckily, did not press Bianca’s cryptic message. “Sure,” he said easily, diverting Bianca’s attention back up to him and away from her uncle, “I’d love to be your brother. But only if that includes Sophia, too. How about that?”

Emily and Bianca squealed their excitement; Sophia went scarlet, clashing violently with her red hair, and she grabbed at Marco’s hand to lead him away to a nearby food stand to get away from the others.

“Not keen on the idea of having a brother?” Marco chuckled at his niece, buying her the bottle of Coke that she asked for.

Sophia thought for a moment before answering, taking a sip of the drink that was passed to her. “That’s not it,” she said, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand, “I’m just… it was nice of him to stand up for me. I don’t like it when the other two act like I’m not wanted.” She dropped her gaze to the floor, pressing her thumbs into the plastic bottle. “And…” she hesitated, took a breath, and then asked, “can I tell you something?”

“Of course,” Marco said, a little taken aback, “anything.”

The plastic popped back into it’s regular shape as Sophia withdrew her thumbs. “I think I’d rather have Ace as an uncle than a brother,” she said in a small voice; Marco’s insides seemed to freeze at the implication of her words. “Dad keeps saying that he thinks you make Ace really happy. And I want you to be happy, too. So if you make each other happy, then…” Sophia looked up at him, looking a little worried and searching his eyes with her hazel gaze that was so like her father’s.

“Oh,” Marco said feebly, not expecting anything like this. Had Sophia always been this mature? Marco had no idea if other children of her age were anything like she was. “Well, I don’t know about that.” Because he didn’t, not yet. But he could hope, couldn’t he?

“Does Ace know about Uncle Shanks?” Sophia asked suddenly, completely derailing Marco’s thoughts of the possibility of one day spending Christmas with the Thatch family with Ace there with them, too.

“No,” Marco said; it felt like his chest was constricting again like it did every time he heard his name spoken out loud, even after all this time, “I haven’t told him anything about him.”

Sophia hummed in thought, then asked tentatively, “do you _want_ him to know?”

It was the question that had bothered him ever since that lunch time in the park on Wednesday. He had decided to never bring up Shanks again unless directly asked about him like Sophia would do on occasion, and that relationship was a whole lifetime ago now, lost in the past among the fog of memories of a happiness he had thought dead to him. He had argued with himself on more than one occasion that to bring Shanks up with Ace would be to dismiss the young man’s own current grief, his impending loss, and draw focus to something that had happened years ago, something that Marco had moved on from in some ways and yet was haunted by continuously in others.

Yes, in a sense, he wanted Ace to know. He felt he could trust him, could open up to him, should the right moment ever present itself. It was strange; again, the fact that they had only been aware of one another’s existence for three weeks rang through his awareness like a bell, making him question how he knew he could trust Ace. How he knew, quite certainly, that Ace made him happy. So yes, he did want Ace to know, but not at the expense of taking the focus off Rouge.

“I think so,” Marco said at last, “but I don’t think I can face telling him. It’d be much easier if I could just… I don’t know… plant the memories in his head, or something.”

Sophia nodded, clearly thinking hard. She sipped at her Coke again and said, “if you could do that, you could fill _my_ head with enough knowledge to become a doctor one day.”

Marco huffed a laugh, wrapping an arm around her shoulders when she turned to hug him. “You’ll be brilliant at whatever you decide to be,” he said warmly.

When they got back to their group a couple of minutes later they found Thatch and Fiona alone, the girls having dragged Ace off to ride their first roller coaster of the day. They returned not too long afterwards, Bianca and Emily hooting with excitement, both wild-eyed and sufficiently pumped with adrenaline, and Ace’s hair was an explosion of whipped black around his face. Emily yanked her hairbrush out of her little bag that she had left with her mother while they went on the ride, and she set on Ace with it, brandishing the brush like it was a weapon. Marco stifled a laugh at Ace’s shriek of pretend terror as Emily and Bianca mobbed him and brushed his hair none too gently.

It was a great day out, all in all, Marco had to admit. Thatch held true to his word and sent Marco and Ace off with the girls on all of the wild rides they wanted to try out, neither he nor Fiona having any desire to join their children on them. The swinging pirate ship was particularly hilarious, as none of them had realised that it didn’t just swing high up on either end of the ship, it went all the way around in a 360 degree spin, throwing them upside-down and causing Bianca to scream and wail that she was going to die.

There were more roller coasters than Marco seemed to remember ever being there back when he and Thatch had come here as students, the kids insisting that they ride them all and screeching with laughter at all of the violent twists and turns. Marco felt sufficiently bruised and battered by the end of the fourth ride, the metal safety bar of the seat bashing his rib cage whenever the rides took a sudden turn. The highlight was that somehow, Ace always ended up in the seat in front of Marco with one or two of the kids, and so the doctor got a lovely view of his smiling, laughing face on each ride whenever he faced the girls.

Sophia somehow managed to talk her younger sisters into going into the haunted house, laughing nastily when Emily burst into tears and had to be heaved up into Fiona’s arms (she and Thatch joined them for that attraction). Marco’s vague wish of finding a way to grab onto Ace came true when he was genuinely shocked by a mummy bursting out of the wall - he yelped, leapt back, and seized Ace by the arm. Ace laughed himself into a coughing fit, but not before he had sneaked a hand around Marco’s waist and held him close to himself. The others couldn’t see them in the dark, and didn’t hear Ace mutter, “don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” with a smirk. It then became very difficult for Marco to calm down, and indeed he left the haunted house with a prominent blush across his cheeks.

Marco bought the three girls and Ace an ice cream each to cheer Emily up after the upset she had faced in the haunted house, and when she tearfully asked Marco to go ride the merry-go-round with her he could hardly refuse. He sat behind her on the two-seater pink pony’s plastic saddle, resolutely looking the other way as Fiona took photo after photo and Thatch and Ace roared their laughter at him. Marco had to constantly remind himself that he was doing this to cheer up his youngest niece, and he would get those two back somehow.

His chance came when they passed a stall selling animal ears on headbands. Emily chose a pair of kitty ears, Bianca wanted bear ears, and Marco jammed a pair of white bunny ears on Thatch’s head, taking a picture before the other man fully realised what was going on. Thatch kept them on at the girls’ combined insistence, looking outrageously stupid as they wondered around the park and snapping at Marco, Ace, and Fiona every time they spluttered into laughter.

They settled down for a late lunch at long last once Ace’s growling stomach couldn’t be ignored any more. They sat together at a long table outside in the sunshine, Ace’s tray piled higher than anyone else’s and earning gasps of amazement from the girls. Marco sat between Thatch and Sophia, opposite Ace, who had Emily and Bianca on either side of him.

Marco reached up to Thatch’s bunny ears and gave one a tweak.

“They suit you,” he smirked.

“Yup,” Thatch drew himself up, summoning his last remaining dignity, “only the best of men can pull off this look, Marco. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Good, I don’t think I want to,” Marco snickered.

Opposite him, Ace was inhaling his food as if he had never been fed before. Marco had been painfully wrong in his assumption that Ace would miraculously discover impeccable table manners for this outing, munching away on his second burger happily as he listened to Sophia’s story about how her gym teacher had split her pants right down the middle while demonstrating a box split to the class.

As the topic was taken over by Emily when she began narrating one of her hilarious school stories, Marco caught Ace’s eye. Ace was watching him as he chewed, and Marco was met again with that sense of there being something working furiously in the freckled man’s brain, much like how Ace had looked so sad the day before as he had left his office. What was that all about? What was _this_ all about? Marco wanted to prod him for an answer, to ask if anything had happened at the hospice, if perhaps Rouge had taken a sudden turn for the worst… but surely Ace wouldn’t keep that from him? Marco didn’t think so, knowing by now that Ace could be counted on to be up front about any happenings with his mother; Ace knew Marco cared, after all.

“Ace,” Sophia said, actually making Marco jump a little, as if just the mention of Ace’s name gave him a tiny electric shock, “will you come with me to get another drink?”

“I’ll go,” Marco said immediately, heart squeezing at the look of desperate longing for his burger that Ace pulled.

“No,” Sophia said at once, as if she had expected him to offer, “you haven’t had enough. Dad,” she called for Thatch’s attention as Marco opened his mouth to argue that it was probably better to not remove Ace from his food, “Uncle Marco’s not eating again.”

Her words worked a charm; Thatch rounded on him at once, frowning at him. “How are you meant to retain that stunning physique of yours if you don’t eat right?” Thatch scolded, ignoring Marco’s sigh. “You aren’t going anywhere until that plate is cleared, mister.”

“Are we really doing this, Ed?” Marco grumbled, watching Ace rise opposite him with a sad, heartbroken look back at his pile of food, “I’ve been fine for ages, you know that. I’m not going to leave it.”

But Thatch wouldn’t hear it, his parental mode well and truly activated by Sophia’s simple sentence. “We’ll do airplanes and trains if we have to,” he threatened, and Marco groaned, knowing full well that Thatch actually would.

Marco watched Ace follow Sophia at a trot with his hands in his pockets, and something about the pair of them leaving together made him nervous.

* * *

“What’re you having?” Ace asked as they queued, digging out his wallet and popping it open. “I think I’ll get one of those ice cooler things.” He looked down curiously at Sophia when she didn’t answer, her face turned down and her bottom lip between her teeth. “Soph?” She started and looked up at him, blinking. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” she smiled, “just thinking.” She perused the drinks menu for a moment before saying, “I’ll have what you’re having.”

Ace placed their order and handed Sophia her drink, but as he turned away to head back to their table Sophia’s hand shot out and she grabbed at the hem of his shirt. “Wait,” she said, and when Ace turned back to her with a concerned frown he was met with hazel eyes blazing with determination, “I need to talk to you in private.”

This threw him. Completely. Ace couldn’t even begin to guess at what Sophia could possibly want to talk about, but he followed her around the other side of a nearby ice cream stand anyway, sitting on a bench out of sight of their group. Ace looked at the girl carefully, worried.

“Should I go get your mom?” he asked gently, “she’d probably be able to help you out better than I can.”

“No,” Sophia said with a shake of her head, “I don’t need help with anything. I need to tell you something.”

This only served to deepen Ace’s concern, but then a shred of realisation fluttered through his mind. “Is it something to do with Marco?” There wasn’t anything else he could think of, no other possible link that the two of them could conceivably share, and thankfully it turned out that he was right. Sophia nodded, balling her fists on her knees.

“You can’t tell him you know,” Sophia said, a sliver of urgency in her tone, “because even though he said he thinks he wants you to know, I don’t…” she trailed off, then looked from her feet up at Ace. “I want him to be happy,” she said fiercely, as if Ace had challenged her conviction.

“Well, sure,” he said, thoroughly and utterly confused by this conversation, “so do I.”

“Which is why you need to know.”

They sat in silence for a long moment, the seconds dragging by. Ace sipped his drink through the straw, heart pounding in his chest as he waited. He had no idea what to expect. Was Marco in trouble? Was he sick? Ace didn’t think he had the strength to handle another person in his life getting seriously ill, so he really did hope it wasn’t that.

“If it’s something that he can’t know I know,” Ace said slowly after a long pause in the conversation, “then maybe it’s best if you don’t tell me.” Sophia’s expression changed immediately; she looked scared, as if she thought she had blown her one chance at explaining something that Ace needed to hear.

“He only doesn’t want to tell you because it would upset him,” Sophia said quickly, clasping her drink tight in her hands, “he doesn’t like talking about it. But it would help you both be happy, I’m sure of it. If you understood. He thinks so too. And I can’t see Dad ever telling you about it.”

Something that would upset Marco? Something he didn’t like to talk about?

And then it dawned on him slowly, as if coming in to land from a mile away at the speed of a feather drifting down from the sky, and Ace couldn’t even try to deny to himself that he wanted to know more about this secret of the doctor’s.

“Wait,” Ace said, “is this to do with whoever it was that he lost?” Sophia went wide-eyed, searching his face, so Ace elaborated. “A few days ago he mentioned that he had lost someone close to him. Is it about that? Because if not, then I really don’t have a clue what…”

The look on her face told him he was right. She took a deep breath that she held in her chest for several tense heartbeats before letting it out slowly, gradually, seeming to deflate with it. “Uncle Marco hasn’t been properly happy since I was six,” Sophia said, that fierce look in her eyes never leaving her despite how her voice shook slightly. “Not since he lost Uncle Shanks.”

Ace sat in silence. The warmth of the sun no longer seemed to reach him, chilling him instead. He felt the blood drain from his face, felt the warmth leave him to pool somewhere deep inside him, to keep his vital organs working, he guessed at vaguely, as he let the shock of those words wash over him. He blinked at Sophia, feeling strangely numb, letting the implications of her words filter into his brain slowly, but it seemed like it had stopped working properly.

“Your uncle?” he asked, and Sophia nodded. His thoughts kicked into gear and raced almost as fast as his heart beat it’s frantic dance against his ribs, trying to drag up the dregs of the memories of the conversation he had had with Marco about Whitey when he was recovering from a hangover. Marco hadn’t mentioned any brothers. “And Marco’s only sibling is Whitey, right?”

“Right,” Sophia confirmed Ace’s assumption, “although Dad would argue that he is, too.” Ace couldn’t say he cared about their brotherly bond much right at that moment.

“So,” Ace said quietly, already knowing the answer to the question he needed to ask, “who was Shanks to Marco, if he was your uncle?”

Sophia swallowed. “His fiancé.”

No, it was worse than he had guessed. Not some random boyfriend. Not a relationship that had barely begun. The person that Marco had most likely loved more than anyone else. Marco had described him as _the closest_ when Ace had asked, and fuck, he wasn’t wrong, was he?

Ace slumped against the back of the bench, staring at his drink in his hands. It didn’t feel cold anymore. He couldn’t feel much of anything. “Shit,” he whispered, forgetting to censor his language in front of the young girl, “I had no idea.” Sophia turned to face him properly, folding her leg under herself and propping an elbow up on the back of the bench. “That’s why he drinks, isn’t it?” Ace didn’t care if Marco’s niece knew about that habit of his in that moment, but she nodded. Ace huffed a humorless laugh through his nose. Of course she knew. Marco wasn’t joking when he had said he was close with the family.

“I want him to be happy,” Sophia said firmly, and when Ace glanced at her she looked set, determined, like she wasn’t going to accept anything else. “I love him. He’s the kindest person I know. He deserves to be happy like when Uncle Shanks was alive.”

“Yeah,” Ace mumbled, “no kidding.”

He felt selfish. Foolish. He already had done, had been thinking about who it was that Marco had lost ever since that conversation, had twisted himself up in knots because who was he to shove his sadness regarding Rouge onto someone who had already been through that themselves? But this just made it so much worse, knowing who it had been. Marco must have been in so much pain, was _still_ hurting because of it, yet he had said that it didn’t matter anymore. How could that be true? How could that be even remotely close to the truth? He was still suffering, he had to be.

His heart felt like it was breaking. Breaking for Marco on his behalf. Trying to imagine what he must have gone through, how much he had to have hurt. He really was speaking from personal experience that day, Ace understood now, he really did know what Ace was going through and how he would feel when the inevitable happened. It felt like a knife was twisting in his heart, ripping him open from the inside-out, trying to imagine just what Marco had to have gone through. Had he done it alone? Surely not, not with the Thatch family being as close to him as they were. But Marco had said he hadn’t wanted anyone around him when it happened, hadn’t he?

Unbidden images of Marco alone in his home, eyes glazed and staring blank, a month’s worth of beard coloring his jaw, flashed in Ace’s mind’s eye. The long hours that blended into days, weeks. The aching loneliness. The misery. The nothing. The great, aching rift of nothing.

And then, quite suddenly, something rose within Ace; a great, burning swell of emotion more powerful than the strongest of feelings he had ever experienced spreading through him like a wildfire. He suddenly wanted to go to him. Right now. Hug him, kiss him, hold him close and tell him he was here, that he cared, that he wanted to help, to listen, to give him some kind of relief after years of probably not dealing with it at all, despite what he said. It was selfish, Ace knew, and he didn’t want to even attempt to replace Shanks, but the need to offer Marco some form of comfort was almost blinding.

It should have scared him, made him cower away from the doctor and decide to leave him well alone, but as Ace looked at Sophia again after several minutes of complete silence he knew he couldn’t do it. He looked back at the girl with her fierce determination mirrored on his own face, and he said, “what do I do with this information? What can I do for him?”

And Sophia said two words. Two words that solidified Ace’s resolve, confirmed he needed to do what he had known all along, what he had decided upon in the instant that Marco had pulled him in outside the hospice.

“Love him.”

* * *

  
  
Ace and Sophia were strangely subdued when they came back to the table, neither of them carrying the drinks that they had said they were getting. It left Marco feeling unsettled, and he kept a very close eye on them both as the family finished up their day out and drove back to the beautiful ivy-covered house in their three cars. Ace didn’t let Bianca go with him when she pestered, insisting that his car was like a junk yard and he’d be far too embarrassed to let her see it - Marco knew that wasn’t the case, having seen the inside of it when he dropped Ace off at the hospice the day before to pick it up.

Emily loved her presents from Ace, rushing off to go grab her favorite doll to strap into the seat that Marco fixed to the back of her bicycle. She took photos of her presents with her phone before attempting a selfie with Bianca and Fiona - Emily dropped her phone and wailed in horror until she discovered that she had miraculously somehow avoided cracking the screen mere hours after taking ownership of her first smartphone.

What was even stranger was the way Ace declined Thatch’s invitation to join them for dinner. If there was one thing that Marco knew about the younger man it was that he loved food, and for him to turn down a meal cooked by Thatch - whose passion was cooking and was on the same level as any renowned professional chef - was completely out of character. So Marco declined as well, and suddenly all hell broke loose in the form of Emily and Bianca bursting into tears.

“You don’t want a couple of old men hanging around on your birthday,” Marco joked, patting Emily on the back, “we’ll just cramp your style.” Was that still a thing that kids said?

“But— I— love— you—” Emily gasped between sobs, flinging her arms around Marco’s neck and almost strangling him, “I don’t—want you— to gooooo.”

And then Bianca grabbed at Ace around the middle, burying her face into his abdomen and wailing that she didn’t want her new brother to leave either.

They were eventually pacified with a piece of birthday cake each that was meant to be saved for tomorrow for the ice skating party; Emily sucked on her fork gleefully as she waved goodbye to her uncle and brand new brother from the kitchen table. Sophia had already disappeared, having said goodbye to them both the moment they arrived back at the house, shutting herself up in her room with her music blaring.

“Don’t be a stranger,” Thatch grinned as he pulled Marco into a one-armed hug at the front door, “and have a good long think about what we discussed this morning, all right?” he added in a whisper so that Ace didn’t hear. Thatch yelped as Marco jabbed him in the ribs.

“Stay happy,” Fiona said, reaching up to kiss Marco on the cheek before doing the same to Ace, “and it was really lovely to meet you, Ace.” Ace spluttered his thanks for allowing him to tag along, and yet Marco noticed that his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Once the front door was shut and the family safely out of earshot, Ace turned to Marco. “Are you free now?” he asked, and there was something about his tone of voice that suggested that even if he wasn’t, Marco sure as hell would be now. “Dad’s with Mom all weekend, and it’s an off day from the gym, so if you aren’t up to anything…”

“Are you sure?” Marco grinned, opening the door to his car, “not bored of me after spending the whole day together?”

Yep, there was definitely something strange going on with Ace. He looked hardened, almost cold, for a brief moment before blinking it away, his usual warmth returning to his eyes. “I’m all for seeing your cats again,” he said with a smile, “but let’s get something to eat on the way back; I’m starving.”

It didn’t add up, Ace’s refusal of Thatch’s dinner then saying he was hungry. They hadn’t been that bad company, had they? Ace had certainly appeared to be thoroughly enjoying himself right up until that moment he and Sophia disappeared. Nerves tingled at Marco’s fingertips as he sought for an answer and finally landed on… No. She wouldn’t have. Sophia wasn’t the interfering type, she wouldn’t have told Ace about Shanks, would she? Marco’s chest felt like something heavy was standing on it as he tried to smile at Ace, suddenly very worried. It would explain both of their behavior, in any case.

Marco hoped he was wrong.

“Who said anything about you coming back to mine?” Marco teased, trying his hardest to keep his tone airy as Ace unlocked his shabby little Peugeot.

Ace shrugged nonchalantly, and despite the worrying Marco couldn’t help thinking he looked beautiful like that, the early evening sun gently lighting his features. “I’ve got an overnight bag packed, just in case,” he said, smiling at the way Marco’s grin dropped into a look of surprise, “wouldn’t want a repeat of last weekend where I find myself sitting around your apartment in my work clothes the next morning.”

Okay, so they were going back to his. Marco didn’t feel the need to point out that even without a change of clothes, Ace wouldn’t be in his work attire at all this time.

Marco did his absolute best to keep his thoughts pure all through dinner, accidentally losing himself to watching the way Ace’s throat worked as he drank, staring helplessly at the grain of rice that clung to his freckled cheek as he told Marco a funny story about his friend Deuce. But Marco was barely listening, not fully registering that the junior doctor that Ace laughed about had worked under Law a few months ago. The story would have interested him at almost any other time, but right now he was far more preoccupied with thoughts of Ace in pajamas, of Ace out of pajamas, of Ace joining him in bed and keeping him warm…

Fuck Thatch for getting his hopes up like that.

They were bowed out of the Japanese restaurant as they left, Ace stroking his stomach and moaning that this was what it must feel like to be pregnant. Marco snorted a laugh at him and couldn’t resist giving his tummy a pat, earning a squeak of discomfort.

“Pregnancy is a bitch,” Marco said wisely, raising an eyebrow as Ace went right back to groaning about how much he had eaten, “you can’t really compare it to overstuffing yourself with burgers and katsudon.”

“How would you know?” Ace laughed, “how many pregnancies have you been involved with?”

“Well, Fiona's, for starters. Three times, too.”

“Oh,” a look of understanding - of what, Marco could only guess - crossed Ace’s features, “right, of course.”

And then he fell silent, not saying another word as they wended their way through the busy streets back to their cars parked nearby. Marco’s concern for the younger man grew, stealing sidelong glances at his face while Ace watched his feet as they walked.

Without really thinking, Marco reached out to Ace as he unlocked his car, running a palm from the top of his shoulders down to the curve of his spine. Ace tensed at the touch briefly, relaxing again when Marco smiled gently at him.

“You okay?” Marco asked. “You’ve seemed kind of off ever since lunch.”

That grain of rice was still there on Ace’s cheek, positively taunting Marco at this point. Ace, to Marco’s surprise, stepped in closer, the setting sun catching his hair and making it look lighter, almost brown, softer. He looked up at Marco through his eyelashes, and there was no way he wasn’t precisely aware of how alluring he looked right now. He was close, close enough to touch his face and swipe at the grain of rice with his forefinger; Marco moved, doing just that, bringing it to his lips as Ace’s dark eyes followed his movement. Ace touched at his cheek where the rice had been, and this time Ace did not blush at the contact like he had in the restaurant on Monday. Marco had the distinct impression that Ace was searching for the right words to say as he held his relaxed gaze.

“I’m fine,” Ace said quietly, watching Marco’s throat work as he swallowed, and Marco was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that he still had his hand at Ace’s lower back. “Totally fine.”

They drove back to Marco’s apartment with Ace following behind, the few minutes silence alone in his car giving Marco the perfect opportunity to replay the gentle smile Ace had shown him over and over until he thought his heart would burst with the affection he felt for the man. He was also beginning to get ahead of himself, excited by the idea of Ace actually planning on staying over, and then realising with a stroke of horror that he probably didn’t have enough food in the apartment to feed the bottomless pit that was his co-worker.

The cats set on them the moment Marco opened the front door, Dawn purring around his ankles louder than any cat should reasonably be able to, Dusk screaming as she trotted to Ace and tried conning this new idiot human into feeding her. Ace squatted down immediately as Marco toed off his shoes, petting the cats and cooing at them happily. They ran off to the kitchen with their fluffy tails held high, chirping in anticipated excitement for their dinner the moment Ace stood upright again.

“Do you want anything to drink?” Marco asked as he bent to grab up the cats’ food from the cupboard, “feel free to help yourself to whatever you can find; there’s good beer in the fridge, or harder stuff in the cabinet under the TV.”

Ace snorted a laugh, causing Marco to look at him questioningly. “I forget how posh you are sometimes,” he said, looking to the rows of liquor behind the sliding glass doors, “having a liquor cabinet and all.”

Marco frowned. “How’s that posh?”

Ace laughed, not unkindly, at Marco’s words. “Never mind,” he smiled, flopping onto the plush couch and stretching out, curling his toes - Marco noted that Ace’s socks had come off with his shoes, weirdly, “I guess a private school boy wouldn’t know what’s considered normal to us regular folk.”

“You’re hardly what I’d call ‘regular’,” Marco replied, taking two bottles of beer from the fridge and popping the caps off, “your father’s the CEO of a huge hospital, for crying out loud. You’re telling me Roger didn’t send you off to private school with the rich kids?”

“Nope,” Ace said cheerfully, taking his proffered bottle and clinking it to Marco’s; he shifted up the couch to make room for the doctor as he sat down, figuring it was a bit much for one person to take up an entire three-seater. “He doesn’t believe in segregating kids based on their parents’ income. I went to boring, standard government-funded schools.”

“Would you believe me if I said I did, too?” Marco asked, sipping his beer. Ace wrinkled his nose in disbelief.

“No way,” he said, shaking his head, “all doctors go to private school, it’s like an unwritten law or something.”

Marco shrugged. “Not this one. It’s true, though, that most of them were privately educated - you can really tell, too. Lots of them didn’t have a concept of money; it made college really interesting until they all started asking their parents for handouts. Ed didn’t, though. He was privately educated all his life, but he chose to slum it with an average Joe like me.”

Ace gaped at him, looking mildly impressed. Marco couldn’t quite grasp what there was to be impressed about - being bullied for working hard at school wasn’t exactly something to brag about, after all - but then Ace said, “just when I thought my opinion of you couldn’t go any higher.”

Ace looked away quickly, lifting his bottle up to his lips as if he could take back his slip-up if he covered it quickly enough. God fuck, he was so cute. Marco couldn’t help but want to tease him a bit, make his cheeks color like they did so easily, but more than that he wanted to find out what had been bothering the younger man all afternoon. Sure, Ace had said he was fine, but that didn’t mean that Marco had to believe him. He was confident it wasn’t to do with Rouge, at least - Marco figured that if something had happened to her then Ace would have cancelled today, or would have made an excuse to leave early and go to her if he had received bad news during the day.

But before he could think of how best to carefully go about finding out what was wrong, Ace blinked back to him, looking curiously alert.

“How long have you lived here?” Ace asked, his question absolutely mundane compared to what Marco had been expecting from the look on his face.

“Uh…” was his highly intelligent reply as he tried to remember. “About four years, more or less, I think.” Ace frowned at him, and Marco got the feeling that he was thinking hard. “Why?”

Ace drummed his fingers on his bottle for a second before answering. “It’s kind of sparse, don’t you think? It looks like you’ve only just moved in. It doesn’t feel homely at all.”

“Wow,” Marco said with a small laugh, “well excuse me for not decorating to your tastes.”

It was deliberate, that lack of a homely feel that Ace had picked up on. The complete lack of pictures on the walls, the absence of anything personal on display, nothing to suggest that the beautiful two-bedroomed apartment was anything other than a show home, was done on purpose. Marco didn’t consider this place his home, only somewhere to sleep, drink, and keep his cats happy and safe. _Home_ had been his three-bedroomed detached house in the suburbs, full of the shit that Shanks bought from tacky shops while on vacation, cards that patients had given them at Christmas and in thanks for their hard work displayed proudly on the mantelpiece over the fire, the bed never made because neither of them could honestly say they cared enough to do it… _Home_ was gone, and Marco had never found the desire to make this place replicate that.

Ace frowned at him, and Marco knew his sarcasm didn’t do anything to hide the fact that he was avoiding what Ace was getting at.

He couldn’t stand it any longer. If Ace wasn’t going to come out with it then Marco would, because the suspension, the not knowing and only assuming, was beginning to get to him. He couldn’t bear to see that sadness in Ace’s eyes anymore, the way he looked at him like his heart was breaking.

“Listen, Ace,” Marco said after a pause, suddenly becoming very aware of the ticking of the clock that hung on the wall over the TV opposite them, “I know something’s bothering you.” Ace didn’t say anything, but he didn’t look away, either, simply watching Marco, his lips slightly parted as if he were about to speak, not denying it this time. When the words didn’t come, though, Marco prompted him. “Sophia said something to you at lunch.” It wasn’t a question. Ace nodded. “Whatever she said to you has been hurting you all day; I can tell. And I’m almost certain I know what it was.”

His heart was drumming away in his chest; his palms felt clammy all of a sudden, his shirt sticking to his back. This was a conversation he had not wanted to have with Ace any time soon, and as the other man nodded slowly without breaking eye contact, Marco felt a wave of nausea wash over his stomach. He could see why Sophia had said something, and perhaps this was his fault for not explicitly stating that she was not to divulge any information to Ace, but regardless, it hurt.

“She loves you so much,” Ace said at last, continuing to watch Marco closely, “I knew you were close with the girls, but when I spoke to her I really got the feeling that she pretty much sees you as her second dad. She kept saying she wants you to be happy.”

Marco hummed in agreement. “She said the same thing to me right after we arrived.”

Ace dropped his gaze then, looking at his bottle in his hands. He looked back up, eyes ablaze with such a mess of emotions that Marco was a little taken aback; sadness, love, pain, and resolve rolled off Ace, the corners of his mouth tugged down as if he were biting back something sorrowful that threatened to break free.

“Sophia told me about Shanks.”

The words hung thick in the air between them, echoing in Marco’s mind long after Ace had spoken them. There it was again, that ingrained response of his chest tightening on hearing his name, his breath caught hot in his lungs momentarily before he could breathe again.

Marco nodded, unable to look at Ace for the moment. “I thought she did,” he said, the effort of the words greater than he had anticipated. He sighed, raising a hand to press his temples between middle finger and thumb, covering his face with his palm and hiding Ace from view. “So you know that he died five years ago?”

He felt Ace nod across from him rather than saw it. Ace laid a hand to his knee gently, leaning in; Marco could almost see the look of concern that was surely there on those freckled features, yet for the moment he couldn’t look at him.

“I’m sorry,” Ace said quietly, his voice a low rumble, “I’m so sorry that you lost someone so…” He trailed off, and Marco was thankful for it. “I wish you had said, though.”

Marco dropped his hand, caught by surprise. “What? Why?”

Ace looked uncomfortable all of a sudden, but said hesitantly, “I feel awful for crying at you about Mom. For making you go through it all again. I’m just…” he swallowed, took a breath, “I’m sorry for putting all of this on you.”

“No,” Marco said immediately, almost cutting Ace off; he had anticipated this response from the man, ready to counter it whenever he finally had this conversation with him, “Rouge and Shanks’ circumstances are completely different. I didn’t go through any of what you are right now. They aren’t related.” Marco gripped Ace’s hand on his knee tight, needing him to know that whatever Marco felt, whatever he had and hadn’t dealt with, Rouge’s illness was not to be compared to Shanks. “Ace, this is precisely why I didn’t want to tell you about him. It’s in the past. It was an accident. Please don’t feel guilty for being upset about your mother having terminal cancer. Please. I meant it when I said I’d be with you through it if you wanted someone. This doesn’t change anything.”

Ace looked at Marco’s hand holding his so tight, apparently lost for words. Marco had never seen him look so devastatingly sad, a hopeless, lost sort of sorrow rather than one that allowed for heaving sobs and salty tears.

“Hey,” Marco said, the firm tone he had taken dropping away to be replaced with something far more gentle, “Ace, seriously, it’s okay.” He reached out with his free hand to tilt Ace’s face up by his chin, guiding him to look up. That look, that love and caring and ache of sadness was there again, Ace’s eyes dark with the weight of it. Marco leaned in ever so slightly, catching himself just in time and dropping his hand from Ace’s face.

“You said it was an accident,” Ace said at length.

Marco nodded. “Sophia didn’t tell you how it happened?”

Ace shook his head; when Marco sighed, he quickly said, “but I don’t need to know, if you’re not up for telling me. I don’t need the specifics.”

He would tell him as much as he could. He would get it all out, now that they were having this conversation, and he would not regret it. Marco’s only hope was that it didn’t somehow turn Ace away, and yet he was sure he knew Ace would not let a past love ruin… whatever it was that was going on here.

“Shanks was a paramedic,” Marco began, giving Ace’s hand another squeeze, “and when I fully qualified and got the job at our hospital, he transferred there with me. He loved his job more than anything. He loved helping people in need, saving lives, being on the front line. He must have seen Hell itself some days, but he never complained, never seemed to dwell on it, just taking it all in his stride.”

Marco took a deep, shuddering breath; he hadn’t told anyone about this in years. “And then one night he and his colleague took a call from the police. An apartment complex was on fire and they needed all available paramedics in the area to get there. So off they went. They helped the firefighters get oxygen to the residents, tended to the burns as best they could on site, and Shanks and the other paramedics all went above and beyond and _stupid_ in their need to help, rushing into the building themselves to get people out.”

Ace gasped, looking stricken. “He didn’t make it out?” he asked.

Marco shook his head and said, “that’s not it. He made it out, all right. Got screamed at by his superior over the radio for going into a burning building without protective gear.”

Marco paused; he could almost hear Shanks’ superior sobbing down the phone at him again, her voice breaking as she told him to get to the hospital immediately. Ace scooted a little closer to him and put his bottle down on the little table in front of the couch, taking Marco’s from him and placing it beside his to take his now free hand in his own. He was warm to the touch, Marco noticed.

“Their ambulance got hit on the way back to the hospital,” Marco said, his voice leaving him steadily rather than wavering like he thought it would, “by a van. Someone who lived in the building rushing home to get to their own loved ones. They rounded a corner as the ambulance came the other way, and…” Marco swallowed, his chest tight yet again. “Shanks was driving. He died on impact. There was nothing anyone could have done.”

Neither of them said anything for a long time. The clock on the wall ticked loudly, the seconds slipping by noisily as Ace just stared at Marco’s face. Marco couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bear to see the pity, the worry, the sympathy that he had seen on the faces of many back then. It still hurt; of course it did. But it was distant now, like a scar that would throb on occasion. In a strange way, Marco felt a little better for having told Ace, as if old, necrotic tissue had been removed to lay way for clean, fresh, new cells to grow.

And when Ace spoke, he surprised Marco in the best possible way.

“I can see why you loved him,” Ace said gently, and Marco found it impossible not to look at him, “he sounds like the bravest man imaginable. I wish I could have met someone that incredible.”

Marco had thought he’d heard it all - how cruel it was that Shanks had been taken, how the driver of that van should have been put to death for his mistake after he somehow survived the crash, how terrible of an accident it was… but never simple appreciation for the life that Shanks had lived. Always anger on his behalf. And Marco couldn’t deal with anger anymore.

“He was,” Marco said quietly, rubbing circles into the back of Ace’s hand with the pad of his thumb, “he was brilliant. Annoying, stupid, irritating… but fuck, he was inspiring. I didn’t like him when we first met, believe it or not. It took years for me to learn that there was so much more to him than his loud, exuberant front. But I’m so glad I did. I don’t regret any of it anymore.”

“Did you used to?” Ace asked, and Marco nodded.

“For a couple of years after the accident I wished I had never loved him,” he said, and with his words came a lump in his throat all of a sudden, as if he were about to cry, even though he hadn’t shed a tear for Shanks for a long, long time, “but as time went on I stopped thinking like that. I’m glad for the time I had with him. I’m so thankful I knew him.”

Ace shuffled a little closer still; they were shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee. “Do you still love him now?” Ace asked, his tone belying his hesitancy in asking the question.

Marco considered this for a moment, trying to find the right words. “Yes, I do,” he said, and to his relief Ace did not look saddened by this, “but it isn’t the same as how I felt when he was alive. It’s distant, not present. It’s a love for who he was and what we had.”

“You won’t ever forget him,” Ace summed up the point Marco was next going to make, “and you won’t ever try to, I hope.”

“No, I won’t.”

“Good.”

“But,” Marco said slowly, never stopping the circles he was rubbing along Ace’s skin, “that doesn’t mean I can’t love someone else as well. Someone present and here.” He looked at Ace again, his freckles so close now, his expression soft and tender. “Someone who understands that no one ever stops loving those who have left us.”

Ace licked his lips before he spoke again, his chest rising and falling a little more quickly than it had a moment before. “Are you sure that’s what you want?” he asked quietly.

He hadn’t been for a long time. Indeed, for the first few years he had wanted nothing to do with anyone again in a romantic way, and then once he began to come around to the idea again he had found online dating to be a joke, and his hook-ups in bars an even bigger one. No one interested him. No one appeared more than skin-deep, although, admittedly, Marco never gave any of them a fighting chance.

“It is,” Marco said levelly, “very much so.”

The conversation was going so differently to how he had pictured it in his head. He had assumed it would be harder to talk about Shanks with Ace, would have felt like he was extracting poison from his blood, but it had been easier than that. Once he got started the words had just come, knowing that Ace would understand, at the very least, what it felt like to be given the news that someone he loved beyond anyone else was gone, or going.

And he _so_ needed Ace to know that he could move on. That he _wanted_ to move on. That he wanted to be happy again with someone, that forever living as if he were on standby was draining him, hurting him, robbing him of his own time. It was not a betrayal to Shanks, as some friend of Whitey’s had put it when they had attended their cousin’s second wedding together last year. There was nothing to be gained in denying himself the chance to find happiness again.

“Mom’s illness has changed the way I see life, I think,” Ace said. “We don’t know what’s going to happen to us at any point. One day she was fine, then out of nowhere she developed pain and got told she had stage four bowel cancer. The same thing happened to Shanks - he went to work as usual, not even considering that he might…” Marco nodded, completely agreeing. “We don’t have time to waste. None of us do.”

“No, we don’t,” Marco said quietly.

Ace ducked his head, his hair slipping out from behind his ear where he had tucked it earlier. “Thank you for telling me about him,” he murmured, eyes fixed on their hands, “and please don’t be angry at Soph for telling me. She did it for the right reasons.”

“I know she did,” Marco agreed, although he couldn’t pretend that this was far sooner than he had anticipated telling Ace. Still, it helped. “But she should have left it for me to decide when to tell you.”

“And…” Ace hesitated for a moment, “I hope that you find someone in the here and now that you can grow to love.”

He had. Oh, good grief, he had. _It’s you_ , Marco wanted to scream, but nothing came out. Not even a whisper. The words stuck in his chest, unable to move, his heart too raw with remembering Shanks despite how much he wanted to pull Ace in and press kisses to his adorable freckles. And even Ace seemed to be waiting for something, for him to say it, and the younger man looked decidedly let down when it became clear that Marco wasn’t going to respond.

“Right,” Ace said with a sigh, gently pulling his hands free from Marco’s hold and standing, stretching, “can I use your shower? I feel gross after that park today.”

“Oh,” Marco blinked, thrown by the abrupt end to the conversation, despite it being his fault, technically, “sure. The towel’s back in the spare room’s closet, so help yourself.”

And as Ace walked off with both cats trotting after him hopefully, Marco sighed into his hands. This was a mess. A complete mess. He was sure he had just ruined everything, that he had very definitely just sent Ace the wrong messages, and that Ace would be left feeling rejected, hurt, and possibly humiliated.

“Maybe it’s best if I stop talking to people,” Marco muttered to Dawn as she came back, seeking his company now that Ace had shut himself in the bathroom. Dawn didn’t allow him to brood for long, headbutting him so hard in the mouth that he was forced to give her attention.

* * *

Marco moved to the balcony that overlooked the quiet street below in Ace’s absence, pulling open the glass doors that led from living room to the small open space. It, too, was devoid of any personal belongings, no potted plants or laundry hanging in the late evening’s breeze, just a simple chair and small table. The doctor rested his elbows on the metal railing, clasping his fingers together in front of himself.

He couldn’t say he blamed Ace for ducking out of the conversation, not really, not when the silence had dragged and he was overshadowed by the ghost of Marco’s past. Really, what had he expected of the poor man? He was just glad that Ace so readily accepted everything that Marco had told him. There was no way he could be expected to lie about that, and Ace had known anyway, Marco could tell.

He wasn’t left alone to think for long. Ace padded out onto the balcony behind him after a few minutes, changed into his loose orange t-shirt and gray shorts already, but he didn’t say anything. So neither did Marco. He would follow Ace’s lead now, wait for him to set the tone for the rest of the evening, to discuss Shanks again should he want to - Marco felt more at ease with the thought of talking about him now - or to work over the very obvious elephant in the room.

What Marco didn’t expect, though, was to feel Ace against him. A broad, solid chest pressed into his back, and strong, muscular arms encircled his waist, holding him close and radiating heat. Marco stayed perfectly still, surprised, his heart hammering in his chest. He felt Ace lay his cheek to his shoulder blade, and firm hands wandered over his abs over his shirt.

He hardly dared to hope, yet all the evidence seemed to point directly at what he was desperately hoping for. What he had hoped for more than he dared to acknowledge.

“It’s not enough anymore,” Ace murmured, his hands stroking lazy patterns over Marco’s stomach, “the flirting. The little touches. The hugs.” Marco felt lips pressed to his shoulder through his shirt; his breathing quickened, swallowing down a gasp. “Knowing how badly you were hurt. How badly you still hurt.” Another kiss followed the first; Marco lifted a hand from the railing to lay it over one of Ace’s questing own, bringing it to a stop.

“Ace…”

Marco turned when guided, Ace’s hands sliding to his hips to gently encourage Marco to face him. He stepped in close again, hands smoothing up over Marco’s chest and seeming content to just touch him there. It felt good. Right.

“It’s not enough for me,” Ace said, looking up at Marco through his dark eyelashes, his damp hair brushed back off his face, “and it’s not enough for you, either.”

Marco leaned forwards slightly, moving into Ace’s body and pulling him in closer with a palm to his lower back. Marco cupped his cheek, thumb tracing over the pattern of freckles there that he had grown so fond of so quickly. He really was perfect, Marco thought, from his kind heart right through to the tiniest of his freckles.

“It isn’t,” Marco breathed, and he was certain that Ace could hear his heart pounding frantically under his shirt, “not nearly close to it.”

Marco shivered as Ace’s hands slid higher, gliding over his shoulders before coming to rest behind his neck, fingers linked together. Ace licked his lips before he spoke again, his eyes lidded with Marco could only read as _want_.

“I can’t be Shanks,” Ace said.

Marco nodded. “I don’t want you to be.”

“And I want to help you. Make you happy again.”

Marco’s heart twinged. “You already do. You have no idea how much you do, Ace.”

Ace smiled softly, leaning into Marco’s hand at his cheek. “I really like you, Marco.” His words were barely a breath of air, yet they rang through Marco as if they had been shouted. He felt giddy all of a sudden, like he was floating, like everything was good in the world and Ace’s confession was the only thing that existed.

“So do I,” Marco said, “God, Ace, so do I.”

And then Ace’s lips met his, softer than he had imagined they would be, far gentler than anticipated, and Marco closed his eyes to the feeling of him, of Ace’s warmth, of his sweet touch. It felt better than Marco could ever remember a kiss feeling, more achingly tender affection poured into that one moment than anything he could remember experiencing before. But Ace broke the kiss far too soon, drawing back with a nervous flutter of his lashes - Marco tugged him in again before Ace had the chance to say or do anything else, kissing him more firmly, fingers slipping past Ace’s ear to card through his damp hair.

No, Ace would never be Shanks. And Marco could never prevent the inevitable from happening to Rouge. But for that moment, that glorious, perfect moment, none of that existed for them. There was only Ace, Ace’s lips parting against his, Ace’s tongue slipping shy against his own, Ace’s small, choked off moan that vibrated along Marco’s lips. Chest to chest. Heart to heart.

And finally, after five long, difficult years, Marco did not cringe away from this kiss. He didn’t wish it was over, nor did he screw his eyes shut in his attempt to pretend it was Shanks. Marco saw only freckles; those cute, wonderful freckles adorning the man he could feel himself falling for.

And all was good in the world at long, long last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly guys if I hadn't ended it where I did then it would have been 5k longer, plus it just felt right finishing where it did. You'll get some good stuff at the beginning of the next chapter instead!
> 
> Can I also just take a moment to say how happy the comments left on the previous chapter made me? You guys say the kindest things and reading your feedback was really overwhelming (in the best ways). So thank you all from the bottom of my heart ♥
> 
> (PS sorry Shanks for writing you dead, I love you ok)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter lives up to the E rating. Please do take note that this fic is rated E and this chapter (finally) reflects it properly.
> 
> This chapter is a break from the plot outside of their relationship. 
> 
> Enjoy your wordy porn with feelings! (I'm sorry I got wordy again I am Trying to rein it in)

Ace followed Marco down onto the couch back in the living room as he was gently pulled, the insides of his knees slotting to rest pressed tight against Marco’s thighs. Ace moved against him like a dream, fluid and supple under Marco’s hands resting possessive at his nape, at his waist. Ace sighed into the kiss that Marco encouraged him into, tilting Marco’s jaw up to angle him a little better with his thumbs pressed into the neatly trimmed line of beard. He was warm, so intoxicatingly _warm_ , through his pajamas, the loose orange t-shirt creasing against Marcos’ own casual pale blue as they worked together in their rhythmic dance.

This felt _right_. The thought struck Marco out of nowhere, drawing Ace in to press flush against him, holding him under firm palms. It was relief and desire rolled into a perfect, inexplicable package, the feeling drawn out of Marco as he moved as one with Ace under his slow, searching kisses. Any doubts he had held, any worries or anxieties about whether he could do this, could ever _feel_ again in someone else’s arms, were gone, like the last five years of struggling to reciprocate another’s touch had never happened.

And when Ace dragged a slow, deep, appreciative groan across Marcos’ tongue, he shivered and returned the action in kind, keeping their momentum gentle, their pace tender, exploring Ace’s mouth with something that bordered into reverence rather than the fierce lust he had attacked the younger man with in his fantasies.

When had he last thought another person _tasted_ good? Had he ever? Had the notion ever struck him before as clearly as now? Marco didn’t know, unable to recall Shanks’ own person flavor to compare with Ace’s. And somehow, blissfully, gratefully, Marco found he did not want to, content to gorge on Ace’s exquisite and unique zest.

Marco exhaled slow against Ace’s lips as those warm hands slid from his jawline to his neck, thumbs tracing small patterns to his carotids, undoubtedly feeling the way Marco’s pulse _thundered_ through him. They continued downwards, reversing the route they had taken on the balcony to find themselves back at Marco’s chest, smoothing over the shirt when Ace leaned back just enough to give himself access. The warmth of his body was missed immediately, but Marco couldn’t stop himself arching up slightly into those questing hands pressing firm to his pectorals, feeling him, _touching_ him and _appreciating_ what they found, if the hitch in Ace’s breath was anything to go by.

It had been too long since he’d last done this, since he’d last moved against another with nothing but willing and want. Perhaps he was a bad kisser now; the thought of asking Ace for feedback made Marco smile slightly into their kiss, licking light against Ace’s tongue and eliciting the most _wonderful_ of throaty moans from the other man. Okay, maybe he wasn’t as entirely out of practice as he thought.

But then Ace broke their connection to instead lave a kiss to the corner of Marco’s lips; Marco followed his movement, gently bumping his cheek to those dark freckles, lips tingling with the loss.

Ace didn’t stop there. Marco didn’t even try to hold back his own groan when Ace trailed a slow pattern of soft kisses along his cheek, just below his ear, coming to stop at his neck. A smile was pressed into Marco’s skin when his fingers dug in, encouraging Ace, telling him in no uncertain terms that Marco _really_ liked what he was doing.

“Your neck’s a weak spot,” Ace’s voice hummed with adoring interest, pitched low and tipping into the hottest thing Marco had ever heard, “and so’s your chest.” To illustrate, Ace squeezed at the solid muscle under his palms, earning another swell of a deep breath to arch Marco’s spine, driving himself against those enticingly warm hands a little firmer. “Mine is, too,” Ace continued, confirming what Marco hoped to be true, “my chest, I mean.” Marco had imagined it was, somehow gravitating to that spot during his nights alone with nothing but thoughts of Ace to keep him company.

But his mind was pulled from deciding whether sliding his hands under Ace’s t-shirt was a good idea right now as he felt deft fingers working at his own shirt buttons. Oh, _lord_ , Ace was _undressing him_ , Marco’s brain caught up as he moved to grip Ace’s thighs instead, a heady sigh escaping him, his head tilting into the back of the couch.

“We’ll go at your pace tonight,” Ace said unexpectedly between kisses gently sucked into Marco’s neck, deliberately not hard enough to mark, “as slowly as you need. We’re not rushing ahead of ourselves.” Whatever shyness Marco had kissed into on the balcony was well and truly gone – or so he had figured, right up until Ace drew back slightly, searching Marco’s eyes with his own heavily lidded smoky gray, gauging Marco’s reaction. “That is,” Ace murmured, “if you _want_ to do anything. I’d be more than happy to just watch a movie or something, if you’re…”

For someone so caring and clearly intelligent, Ace really could be oblivious to the glaringly obvious, apparently. “I want to do _everything_ with you,” Marco soothed, running his palms up Ace’s thighs over his loose shorts, coming to rest at his hips. “Do you know how many times I’ve wanted to kiss you in the last week or so? How many times today alone I’ve stopped myself from doing so?”

He sat up slightly, easing a slow, passionate kiss to Ace’s lips to help prove his point, a shiver tickling up his spine at the way Ace inhaled through his nose at the touch. When Marco relaxed back into the cushions, he knew he’d never forget the way Ace looked at him in that moment – utterly blissed out and just _begging_ to be kissed again, lips parted slightly in the most enticing manner, and the way he chased after Marco’s lips with his own before he could stop himself was _delightful_.

“Talking about Shanks hasn’t stopped me from wanting you,” Marco said gently, bluntly addressing what Ace was so clearly getting at, thumbs pressing reassuringly into those hard muscles, “and now that I have you, I’m not letting you go. If anything, talking about him has made this easier.” As if he had given himself permission, at long last, to stop denying himself the possibility of happiness.

Ace colored immediately, a cheesy line doing a bigger number on him than any amount of kissing or touching ever could, by the looks of things.

Regardless, Marco could see Ace’s point. He didn’t need _slow_ , not now that he had everything he had been yearning for straddling his lap in such a garishly bright top – but rushing to the finish line would be senseless, and despite what Ace had said earlier, despite how Marco agreed with him wholeheartedly, this promise of a new beginning was not something that they had to grasp and run with at full speed, terrified of losing it to the threat of life. No – now that Ace knew how he felt, and now that Marco had opened his heart and shared that tattered piece of his soul with the younger man in exchange for his own hidden sadness, they had the luxury of exploring each other at a pace that worked for them both.

“I want to take my time to learn you properly,” Marco whispered as Ace leaned back in, hands coming to cup Marco’s stubbly jaw once again, holding them close, like a fractured glass vase being restored to pristine and whole. “I want to learn more about your kind heart. What your fears are. What makes you laugh so hard you cry. How you react when things don’t go as planned.” Was he coming on too strong? Too romantic? Marco thought this was a hard _yes_ , but Ace looked enraptured, tender, like nothing could ever hope to hurt him again. “I want to _know_ you.”

Marco closed his eyes as he was guided into another kiss, lips parting under Ace’s gentle pressure to tangle to the slowest beat.

He should have been scared, he realised, by his open, raw admission. Scared beyond measure of falling in love again, of actively looking to become entwined in the life of another so deeply, right down to the foundations of what made them _them_. But here, in the moment, with it beginning in real time, Marco felt not a shred of fear or doubt. There was only Ace; warm, stunning, and so wholly absorbed in where they were heading together.

Only Ace, whose hands were back at Marco’s shirt, sliding through the remaining buttons like they didn’t exist for him, laying the man below him open and bared for his eyes alone.

“I feel the same way,” Ace confessed, pressing another kiss to Marco’s lips after running his hand through his black locks, netting back the stray damp strands to tangle behind his ears. “I want to savor this—” a kiss to Marco’s left cheek, “—enjoy every moment with you.” A kiss to Marco’s right. Marco made an encouraging sound, voice momentarily absent as he searched Ace’s heated gaze, studying the tiny flecks of hazel that circled dilated pupils. “And live a life without regrets.”

That sounded _perfect_.

 _He_ was perfect, Marco thought as Ace drew back slightly, peeling apart Marco’s shirt to reveal him properly, Ace’s expression shifting just _so_ to give Marco a glimpse of a hunger he hadn’t seen there before—

—before Ace gasped, stilling, eyes darting over Marco’s bare chest.

“Oh, _wow_ ,” he breathed, fingers tracing ardently over firm muscle and skin that shivered on contact, “ _your tattoo._ ”

It should have been obvious that Ace would react accordingly – he hadn’t, after all, seen Marco topless before, and honestly, if Marco thought about it, how common was it for physicians to sport huge, detailed, intricate blue phoenixes on their torsos? He couldn’t deny how _good_ it felt to have Ace look at him like that, like he was a coveted first place prize that Ace had just managed to snatch from the hands of a faceless competitor, and the flex that followed was clearly welcomed by his partner.

 _Partner._ That had a wonderful ring to it. Ace, Marco’s partner. Ace, Marco’s boyfriend. Ace, Marco’s future hus—

“You’re _beautiful_ ,” Ace said in that same breathless worship, following the phoenix’s golden tail feathers that looped around Marco’s navel, entirely captivated by the inked bird; Marco couldn’t suppress the twitch at the feeling of Ace’s fingers skittering over his skin. Just to be touched, to be adored so openly was euphoria of the kind that Marco could drown in. “It’s a phoenix, right?” Ace asked, entirely unaware of how Marco studied his face, simply watching the way his eyes roved as he took in the details of the tattoo, “why’s it blue?”

Why, indeed.

“Blue is a versatile color,” Marco said gently, carefully watching Ace’s expression, waiting for the moment when he realised, when he understood the significance of the bird. “It’s the color of melancholy. Of loss.” Ah, there it was – Ace’s gaze snapped up to meet his immediately, searching him, piercing Marco’s heart with that same bright, honest affection that Ace had shown him after learning about Shanks. “But blue is also a healing color. If green represents new life, then blue represents the calm of returning to stability; of moving on, if you like.”

Ace dipped his head in a nod, watching his own fingers move over the outlines of the magnificent bird. “For him?” His voice was clear, no hint of jealousy or bitterness, thankfully, _thankfully_ —

“No,” Marco corrected softly, meeting Ace’s gaze when it lifted to his face again, confused, “for me. To signify to myself that I was ready to let him go. Ready to try to heal.”

The kiss that Ace puzzled to his lips in response was slow and achingly compassionate, as if he was trying to pour everything he could never give voice to into that one action. Marco reciprocated wholly, eyes sliding closed once more to the overwhelming feeling of _love_ , of caring for someone to degrees he hadn’t considered reaching ever again.

How strange it was, really, to find what he had craved in someone so unlikely, someone who, by all accounts, was from a whole other world to him. How if Ace had chosen any other speciality to try out in his quest to busy himself away from his impending loss, Marco would have never met him. How if, on that fateful day when Ace had happened to mention his skin condition to Nami in passing, Marco had not been in his office at the right moment – Nami would have taken him to someone else, surely, and they wouldn’t have made their connection.

Ace’s small, sweet moan was swallowed hungrily as Marco angled to deepen the kiss further, trying with all his might to bounce that sincere adoration back to Ace, to show him, to _really show him_ that he was cherished. Oh, how it _hurt_ to really stop and consider how close they had come to never meeting, how if that particular chain of events hadn’t happened, Marco would have never had the chance to care for Ace. He would have never seen how Ace devoted himself to Rouge, or how he could cry so openly out of sheer relief for his parents’ happiness that afternoon outside the hospice.

Marco’s heart felt weak in his chest with the enormity of it all, how grateful he was for this chance, for _Ace_. For life to finally complete his rebirth, scouring away the death and misery to pave way for something fresh and vibrant to take root. It was heartache of the most incredible kind, yearning for what he already had in his arms, missing him despite being pressed so close their heartbeats had rolled into one.

Ace’s breath stuttered as he pulled back after several moments, his cheeks ignited, lips shiny and plumped and _delicious_. So Marco sampled them again, pulling Ace against him by his hips, groaning low because he _could_ , he absolutely _could_ kiss him if he wanted to now, no longer needing to fight what had tortured him relentlessly.

He would finish healing to Ace’s mould, coming truly alive again for him, with him, _because of him._

When Ace shifted against him and ended the kiss with a broken off gasp, Marco tried – sincerely, honestly, _tried_ – to stop himself rolling his hips up into Ace’s weight as he dipped his face and kissed the phoenix’s head at his sternum.

And Ace, it seemed, didn’t intend to react with a sharp gasp into Marco’s chest.

Those gray eyes _blazed_ when Ace raised his head, that hunger that Marco had seen back at full force, raging in the expanse of his stormy gaze. It was like a punch to the gut, rendering Marco momentarily winded and figuratively flailing, finding himself completely at peace with the prospect of drowning in Ace’s depths.

“ _Ace_ ,” Marco gasped when Ace pressed up against him again, his talented mouth latching back onto the doctor’s neck, favoring the other side this time, and scraping his teeth over the sensitive flesh. Again, that arch, unbidden, curved Marco’s spine as his chest was palmed at in earnest, thumbs rubbing sure over his nipples; he gripped Ace’s hips so hard he was positive he was going to bruise him.

 _So good_.

_So right._

_I_ like _this._

His blood buzzed with an onslaught of emotion, the unfamiliar desire to _touch_ and _to be touched_ in return feeling so foreign to him yet so keenly pleasant, warming him inside and out as Ace hummed a moan into his throat.

“I want to touch you, want to make you feel good,” Ace groaned to Marco’s skin, dampened by his saliva. “Can I, Marco? Would it be too much too soon?” He sounded like he was angry at himself for giving in, yet also desperate; Marco picked up on the underlying urgency through the questions, turning his face to nose at Ace’s hair, distantly noting how it was almost dry now.

There were degrees of physical intimacy; they both knew that. Going all the way right then and there, opening Ace’s body up underneath him and sinking into his heat, would be what Marco considered going _too fast_. But touching, the chance to feel Ace come undone against him, was well within what he would class as appropriate for tonight.

“Only if I get to return the favor,” Marco’s words flowed through thick hair, muffled slightly by it. “God, Ace, you have no idea what you do to me.”

“I think I could hazard a guess,” Ace smiled to the shell of his ear, earning a pleasurable twitch in response, “since it’s probably along the same lines as how you make me feel.”

He was sure he was about to lose his mind when Ace palmed at his belt buckle, drawing back just far enough to search Marco’s eyes, and Marco readily admitted to himself he was surprised to see hesitancy there. Surprised, but not unwelcomed; Ace was clearly battling hard with being respectful of Shanks’ memory and Marco’s own unknown boundaries, the young man really having no idea just _how much_ Marco wanted to demonstrate his love for him through more than just pretty words, however much he reveled in the thought of whispering sweet nothings to the soft curve of his ear for the entire night.

Taking Ace’s hand at his belt in his own, Marco pressed a chaste kiss to his palm. “Shall we move to the bedroom?” He asked, emboldened by Ace’s honesty, although he was reasonably confident that he already knew the answer.

And Ace smiled the most seductive smile that Marco had ever seen him pull, rolling his hips down to meet where Marco had been straining in his pants since the moment Ace had said anything about _going slow_. And _holy crap Ace was hard, too,_ Marco realised belatedly, his mouth going dry, the tenting in Ace’s loose shorts only too obvious once he leaned back and away at last, giving Marco a perfect view of him.

“Yeah,” Ace breathed, eyes narrowing with delight when Marco arched to meet his hips, palms slipping up his orange t-shirt to caress his lower back, “but only if you’re _sure_. I’m not doing anything you aren’t comfortable with.”

“How could I—”

It was a struggle to form words all of a sudden, Ace’s arousal right _there_ in Marco’s lap, the way he nipped at his own lower lip – it was too much but in all the right ways, that whirlwind of need for another person one so sorely missed, yet the loss of it never fully _grasped_ until so recently.

“How could I not be comfortable with _anything_ involving you?” Marco laid himself bare, sweeping Ace up in his arms and bringing them flush again, hearts pounding frantically. Ace made a small, suppressed noise of surprise when Marco kissed him hard, loving, _eager_. “I _want_ you, Ace.”

And Ace went perfectly, totally pink in an instant, right up to the tips of his ears.

 _Ah, dammit_. There wasn’t a single thing that wasn’t perfect about him, was there? Falling in love again was so satisfying.

Ace fisted the back of Marco’s shirt as he was lifted with ease, as if he wasn’t a solid wall of tight, rippling muscle bound in the most wonderful freckly packaging. Strong, warm legs encircled Marco’s waist immediately, and Ace crushed their lips together with a rush of a sigh.

Walking them to his bedroom was an interesting feat, what with not being able to see where he was going nor knowing if or when he was about to punt one of the cats down the hall – he would accept their sacrifice, a small price to pay in the grand scheme of things. But Marco made it without incident, successfully keeping their kiss intact, gladly swallowing each and every little sound that Ace made. Marco was reluctant to remove his grip from Ace’s _incredible_ ass – all firm, supple muscle beneath just the right amount of squeezable fat – once the door to his room banged open, but the moment Ace’s back made contact with the bed he arched up, pulled Marco in close and moaned, “god, you’re _strong_.”

Maybe Ace had a thing for praising.

Maybe Marco did, too.

Excitement pulsed through Marco as Ace busied himself with the belt buckle again, popping it free and relaxing some of the strain pulled taut around Marco’s hips. And then, as Marco fumbled with the hem of Ace’s t-shirt, that all too familiar blast of nerves hit him without warning, the shock of it grounding him so suddenly in the present.

They really were doing this; Ace really was lying beneath him, flushed and erotic, never looking away from Marco’s steady gaze. _He_ didn’t look nervous, for what it was worth, that brilliant determination and resolve back from earlier, this time applied to something _so_ much more satisfying. Marco took a breath, a breath which stuttered as Ace palmed him through his pants.

Marco gasped, caught in the heat of his touch, twitching forward. He was alight with adrenaline, his body humming with it, with the anticipation, with _need_ and nerves and that scorching, deep-seated _ache_ to touch, to hold, to love. And, judging by the way Ace’s pulse fluttered like a trapped butterfly under Marco’s lips when he kissed up his neck, the younger man felt very much the same.

Yet astonishingly, those warm hands stopped Marco’s from pushing the offending t-shirt up Ace’s abdomen, preventing Marco from revealing what he knew to be the singularly most gorgeous body he’d ever laid eyes on. Marco leaned back, searching Ace’s apologetic expression.

“Ace?” Marco asked gently, wondering if perhaps Ace was having second thoughts suddenly and hoping, _hoping_ that that wasn’t the case. “What’s wrong?”

Ace hesitated, swallowing before he spoke. “It’s still there,” he said quietly, turning his face away for the first time, looking very much like he didn’t want to give voice to what he was thinking, “the psoriasis, I mean. I don’t want you to see it.”

Relief – sweet, blessed relief – flooded Marco, released as a small sigh. “I’ve seen it before,” he reminded him, cupping Ace’s cheek and stroking along the pattern of freckles, encouraging Ace to look at him again, “and it’s not ugly. There’s nothing off-putting about it, so please don’t worry.”

But Ace didn’t remove his grip from where Marco still fisted around his t-shirt, thumbing small circles into the back of his hand. “Maybe not in a clinical setting, but when I want to look good for you, its…” Ace trailed off, looking vaguely embarrassed.

Marco leaned forward again, pressing his hips flush to Ace’s and rolling against him with the barest of motions. There was no doubt that Ace couldn’t feel how hard he was, not when his eyes widened as they did. “Do I feel like I’m repelled by the thought of your skin?” His voice left him in a low, sure tone, laying bare how aroused he was, how _Ace_ was making him that way.

“No,” Ace whispered, grinding up against Marco in response, knees falling open by a few more degrees as he relaxed underneath him. “You feel really— really turned on.”

“You said you wanted to make me feel good,” Marco mouthed to Ace’s neck, setting a steady, slow rhythm against him, head positively swimming with the build-up, the tension, the way Ace rocked in tandem with a choked-off moan threatening to send him over the edge just like that, “and I want to do the same for you – I want to give you the attention you deserve. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in loving your mother so much that your body reacts as it has.” He gave the t-shirt an experimental push up Ace’s skin again, intent on dropping the matter if Ace wasn’t comfortable, but this time Ace didn’t still his hand. “You’re gorgeous just as you are – I promise you.”

_Let me love every last inch of your good heart._

Ace looked away, so nervous that Marco couldn’t help raining kisses down over his freckles, his ear, his hairline to try and cool that tension blazing fierce just under the surface.

“Okay,” Ace said at last, “but if you go soft—”

If anything, Marco was far more concerned about coming the moment he saw Ace completely bare.

“That’s never going to happen.”

Ace sat up into a slow, sensual kiss, only broken to allow Marco to pull his t-shirt over his head with careful, controlled adoration. Marco’s own shirt was guided from his shoulders, eased down his toned arms as Ace coaxed his tongue out, sucking on the tip with a _pop_ on release before diving back in. His hands were back at Marco’s groin the moment their shirts were discarded, silently refusing to allow Marco to lay him back and just _look_ at him bathed in the light from the hallway like he so wanted, cheeks still pink and betraying his doubts.

“Marco,” Ace groaned into his mouth as he pulled the zipper of his pants down, “wanna feel you already.”

Without a second thought or beat of hesitation, Marco pulled away and stood, ridding himself of his pants and socks with fingers that seemed to have gone numb. It was happening – it was happening, and he was _excited_ for it.

But when he made to slot himself right back between Ace’s thighs and finally appreciate all of his curves and contours with fingers and tongue both, Marco was stopped by a hand placed directly over his phoenix tattoo.

“Your underwear,” Ace answered his questioning look, gaze dark and heavy and quite unlike anything Marco had seen before in the younger man.

Ace could have commanded Marco to take a running jump off the balcony in that aroused, assertive tone and he would have done so with little more than a rushed word of thanks. He was _so_ hard as he did what Ace alluded to, movements pronounced and slow the whole way, watching those heavily lidded gray eyes the entire time he bent, removed, and straightened up again, displayed for Ace’s pleasure. Marco could feel himself swell under Ace’s heated gaze, naturally drawn directly and unashamedly to his erection, the head flushed dark and shiny with precum. The thought of telling Ace that he honestly couldn’t remember the last time he had got hard under another person’s gaze was lost to Marco as he watched Ace palm at himself through his shorts, brazen and _oh god so sexy_.

And when Marco’s fingers slipped firm over the waistband of those damned pajama shorts, Ace lifted his hips without hesitation, silently guiding; his head tilted back and he sighed as he was freed, straining up towards his navel. It took Marco a solid five seconds before it really sunk in that he was staring at Ace completely naked, at last, on his bed and in the flesh and more impossibly stunning than Ace would probably ever believe he was.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Marco hissed, the bed dipping below his knees as he climbed back right where he belonged, “ _you’re so beautiful_.”

Ace far, _far_ exceeded Marco’s imagination, all of his dreams and his fantasies completely losing their vibrancy in the face of the real thing. Strong, lean abdominal muscles flexed as Ace flashed an unconvinced grin, lifting his chin to invite a hot, passionate kiss that carried so much _more_ than simple words would ever do. Ace really was beautiful, with or without the patches of dry red skin, and Marco would see to it that Ace one day understood precisely how captivating he really was.

Psoriasis patches did indeed litter Ace’s chest and abdomen, yet they were entirely unnoticed by the doctor, present and yet not of any interest or concern. Ace settled back on his elbows, falling to his back when Marco leaned over him, and _oh, fuck_ , Ace was wet against him as Marco slid into place atop him, his breath caught in a gasp at the back of his throat.

“So are you,” Ace said, rocking up into Marco with something of a sigh, “I’ve thought so ever since the first time I saw you. Did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t,” Marco replied honestly – how _could_ he have known that? When had Ace first noticed him? The first day he had started in cardiology? Marco didn’t even know when that had been. All those weeks before they had spoken, wasted. All that time he could have been getting to know someone so unique and tender, and he hadn’t even spared a second thought for the man until he had been pulled along into his office.

Strong arms encircled Marco’s neck and guided him close, warm fingers sliding to twist into blond hair enough to tug gently, and Ace’s entire body seemed to envelop Marco in burning heat. “Yeah,” Ace’s lips curved into a smile, so close that Marco could almost taste him, “I saw you talking to Nami as I was introduced to Dr. Thatch, and I thought to myself, ‘finally, a hot doctor to look at’.”

Marco huffed a laugh, closing his eyes to the feeling of Ace’s forehead bumping warm against his own. “So that’s all I am?” He teased lightly, voice turning husky under the continuous grinding and rocking against Ace, the act so simple and yet wonderfully gentle and profoundly intimate. “Just a bit of eye candy to admire, hm?”

Ace licked into Marco’s mouth once again, rocking in tandem and capturing his gasp caused by the electricity that seared through them both, charged by being laid bare together at last. Large, questing hands roamed over Ace’s body and his back lifted off the mattress into Marco’s touch with a guttural, stifled moan, encouraging him to _keep doing that_. He complied, of course, thumbs dipping into the ridges and valleys of Ace’s ribs where muscle stretched taut, tracing along the contours of his chest, familiarising himself with what he craved, what he intended to become a natural part of life from today onwards.

“You’re so much more than that,” Ace rasped to Marco’s ear, the heat of his confession carrying weight of the type that had Marco’s heart threatening to combust, “you turned out to be so much _more_ than I could have ever expected.”

Oh, and if Ace wasn’t precisely _that_ himself, Marco didn’t know what to think anymore.

Marco’s hips bucked out of sync against Ace as the younger man moved to wrap his hand around their erections tight, stroking along them both with an expression of such longing that Marco was actually in danger of coming just from the sight of him. He looked strained, like their pace wasn’t nearly enough anymore, like he wanted to lose himself to the pleasure and be pulled under by it.

So Marco gripped Ace’s hips tight, tilted him to angle better against him, and thrust into that tight, hot grip encircling them.

Marco’s name spilled from Ace’s lips as precum flowed freely from his erection fisted to Marco’s, lubricating their slide together and fuelling Marco’s desire for him like nothing else.

“You deserve to be loved again,” Ace panted, forehead pressed to Marco’s own, thumb resting gently at the dip of his chin, “you deserve to be adored.”

Kisses were pressed to Ace’s throat as his head tilted back, making the loveliest noises of helpless arousal with each suck to his skin. It was bliss, Marco thought absently, sweat beginning to build where they touched, Ace’s thick hair tickling his face – total and absolute bliss.

“ _Ace_.”

It would never again be Shanks’ name that Marco fought to stop himself saying. Gone would be the habit of fucking strangers in the total dark, biting back moans of _Shanks_ and dragging up memories of how he had felt, each time finding the recall a little dimmer, a little more lost to the call of moving on. It gave way piece by piece, crumbling in Ace’s steady grip, leaving Marco exposed down to his core, ready and _willing_ to be born anew more entirely than he had ever entertained.

“ _Ace_ —"

_I’m yours to mould. Yours to shape. Yours to own._

A mantra of only Ace’s name filled the spaces where once lay nothing but denial. Only Ace, his hair splayed like silk over the sheets, filled Marco’s vision as he began to lose himself. The all-consuming pull of oblivion sunk into Marco’s awareness, moving as one with the man he was falling in love with, Ace’s own gasps and moans of _Marco_ not blanked out in favor of pretending he was once again with his ex. Ace was _real_ , eyes bright when Marco moved to kiss him, swallowing his rushed exhale and hoisting his hips a little higher.

“ _Ace, I_ —”

_Don’t say it._

“I—”

_It’s too soon._

“I’m—”

_In love with you._

“So _close_ —”

Marco’s awareness narrowed, breath coming in short, sharp gasps.

There was nothing but Ace’s thighs, quivering, tense, knees pinned to Marco’s ribs.

Nothing except Ace’s stuttered moans delivered straight onto Marco’s tongue as he was pulled back in – hungry, longing, feeding directly on Marco’s own arousal, it seemed, drinking him in and burning bright, fuelled by his open adoration.

And naught beyond Ace’s back arching away from the bed, hips spasming up against Marco’s, body going rigid as he spilled between them with a sob of Marco’s name against plush, kiss-bitten lips.

_Ace. Only Ace._

And Marco followed with a sigh of Ace’s name to a freckled cheek that seemed to empty him of all the lingering sadness and pain in his heart, his loss but a mere shadow of a wound, nothing but a scar, something that would never trouble him again during intimacy. It was expelled, released via his orgasm ripping through him with a bone-deep shudder, hot and sticky between them.

A kiss to each of Ace’s eyelids.

 _I’m in love with you_.

A kiss to Marco’s forehead.

 _Let me help and guide you_.

A shaky laugh of quiet disbelief pressed to Marco’s lips.

 _Let me do for you as you have done for me_.

Fingers caressing through black hair, thumbs rubbing gently over temples.

 _Let me share the burden of what is to come for you_.

And Ace.

Just Ace.

Smiling with the most open, sincere affection Marco had ever seen directed at him—

 _I’ll care for you with everything I have_.

—his freckles painted like constellations across his cheeks, begging for Marco to spend years learning their precise, intricate patterns to the very tiniest of the lot.

* * *

The first thing Ace was really aware of on waking – outside of how bright the room was with the early morning sunshine pouring in through the open curtains – was the warm body he was curled up against, spooning the taller man in bed with him in a tight embrace. And wildly, almost, it was not a dream. None of it had been – not telling Marco he liked him, nor kissing him, touching him, or losing himself to the drag of Marco’s body along his own. And this, here, chest pressed flush to Marco’s back, palm resting against his abdomen where it was slung over Marco’s waist, was not something cooked up by Ace’s vivid imagination.

A thrill of excitement thrummed through Ace as he pressed his face to Marco’s cervical spine, sighing against the skin. Marco, thankfully, didn’t wake, his breathing remaining gentle and steady even when Ace shifted against him, pulling his knees up to slot into the backs of Marco’s thighs.

It had been incredible, Ace reflected. Everything had felt so right, exactly as he had longed for it to, enjoying each and every reaction he had coaxed from the older man with heartfelt eagerness. Yes, this right here was quite literally divine, as far as Ace was concerned, and more than he surely rightfully deserved. The whole conversation about Shanks had, of course, been difficult, and yet not nearly as hard as he had anticipated in those intervening hours between speaking to Sophia and addressing it with Marco. And, judging by how sincere Marco had appeared, he really was happy with how the night had progressed and ended.

Ace stroked absentmindedly along where he knew the blue phoenix lay inked into Marco’s skin, grinning into the other man’s back as Marco twitched in his sleep. It had been achingly intimate of a different kind, the time they’d spent after cleaning up in the bathroom together, catching each other’s eye continuously and breaking out into content, sheepish grins. Climbing under the covers together to cuddle and kiss well into the night, simply talking about nothing and familiarising themselves further with the feel of the other’s skin through gentle, skimming touches, was something that Ace could _definitely_ get used to doing.

Marco had, much to Ace’s initial horror, taken it upon himself to fervently demonstrate that the psoriasis patches were not some kind of disease to be ashamed of, kissing each one on Ace’s chest and stomach despite the half-hearted protests he had wrung from the younger man. So yes, Ace had conceded after continuous affection lavished to his marked skin, maybe he now believed that they weren’t something straight from a B-rated horror movie; if Marco could bring himself to kiss them, they couldn’t be _that_ bad.

Ace pressed another kiss to the back of Marco’s neck before rolling away as silently as he could, intent on not disturbing his lover – Ace shivered with delight at the realisation that that was precisely what Marco was, now – as he found he couldn’t ignore his body’s call to visit the bathroom any longer, despite how nice it was simply lying there in their cocoon of heat. Marco didn’t stir, and Ace only _almost_ tripped over Dawn when she circled around his legs with an expectant chirp.

“Sorry, baby,” Ace whispered to the fluffy gray cat, bending to scritch behind her ear, “I don’t know where your dad keeps your food yet, so you’ll have to wait a bit, okay?”

Dawn trilled a happy little noise, leaning her weight against Dusk instead as the black cat rubbed up alongside her sister with a squeak of a meow.

They both accompanied Ace into the bathroom before he could shut the door, headbutting his calves until he was done, their actions indicative of this being a routine they usually carried out with Marco in the mornings. Ace took a moment to look himself over in the mirror as he washed his hands, smiling at his reflection. It had been too long since he’d felt so genuinely happy, he realised with a rush, splashing cold water to his face as a giggle bubbled up his throat and threatened to burst from his lips. Guilt followed, as it always did these days whenever the swell of cheer grew too large in his chest, but this time it wasn’t quite so nauseating. Knowing that Roger was there with Rouge right now, most likely, was an enormous comfort, regardless of how Ace felt about his father on a personal level. Roger would have spent the night in the hospice’s guest room, surely, and would be beside Rouge for every moment of the weekend, as Rouge had assured Ace he would.

Vague musings of introducing Marco to Rouge accompanied Ace as he wondered back into the bedroom and slid under the covers again, intent on snuggling up with Marco once more. Was it too soon to be calling Marco his boyfriend? Most likely, Ace guessed as he grabbed up his phone from where he had left it on the nightstand and scooted close, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t entertain the thought in the privacy of his own mind, of course. He tucked his knees right back up to the backs of Marco’s thighs again and buried his face between strong, warm shoulder blades.

With a sleepy sigh Marco shifted in Ace’s embrace, fingers seeking out the warm hand flat to his abdomen and linking between Ace’s. Ah, crap, this was heaven, this level of easy affection that Ace had never really sought or received in his catastrophes of relationships in the past.

With a little difficulty Ace unlocked his phone, propping it up on the back Marco’s neck to type. Marco didn’t stir further, breathing dipping back down into something slow and relaxed now that he had a hold of Ace’s hand.

 _Deuce_ , Ace tapped out on his phone, _you’ll never guess what._

He could show off a bit, right? He could siphon off a bit of the happiness that threatened to choke him and leave him helpless to sobs of relief, couldn’t he? Because if not, Ace was certain he was about to succumb to tears from the overwhelming sense of belonging he was wrapped up in, that small, barely lucid gesture of intimacy from Marco nearly being too much so early in the morning. He felt foolish for it as it came out of nowhere, topping off what had doubtlessly been the best night of his life and filling him with such a startling sense of being cared for that he was left reeling.

Bending his free arm awkwardly, carefully, so as to not drop his phone and hit himself in the face, Ace raised it to take a selfie cuddling with Marco, a self-satisfied grin in place for Deuce’s benefit. He sent the photo before he could talk himself out of it, not missing the fact that that was now the first – and only – photo that he had of the two of them together.

Deuce’s reply came through quickly, Ace’s phone remaining silent with the vibrate turned off; waking Marco with something like this wasn’t on the menu for the morning.

 _EXPLAIN_.

Ace suppressed a snort of laughter with great difficulty at Deuce’s single word reply, typing as quickly as he could with one hand:

 _We talked last night and I went for it, baby_. Deuce didn’t need to know about Shanks; that discussion could come later, if ever, and directly from Marco, not Ace. _YOLO and all that_.

Deuce would undoubtedly not be satisfied with such a blasé response, not after their heartfelt chat earlier in the week. He most likely wouldn’t believe Ace had _YOLO’d_ anything at all, knowing full well that Ace would have calculated and considered every single route and possibility before settling on acting.

_So what’s it like?_

Ace blinked at the unexpected reply. How unusual for Deuce to ask for specifics.

 _Fuckin huge, dude,_ Ace typed, cheeks heating up at the memory of Marco fully erect and, dare he say it, utterly delicious, _he’s gonna wreck me with it. I’ll see you in the OR after he’s destroyed me._

Ace had to actually bite his lip to stifle his snort at Deuce’s horrified text back.

_ACE NO. NO. I MEANT WHAT’S IT LIKE WAKING UP NEXT TO THE GUY YOU’RE MAD ABOUT, YOU ASS._

Oh, but of course. Of _course_. Deuce, the romantic right to his core, the man who Ace knew to dictate soppy poetry into his phone when the mood struck him out of the blue, would have been angling at something soft and sweet rather than vulgar and coarse. Naturally. Jeez, Ace needed to drag himself back out of the gutter.

But all thoughts of tormenting his best friend further were wiped from Ace’s mind the instant Marco squeezed his fingers between his own, sleepily muttering, “what’re you laughing about?”

The phone was dropped over Ace’s shoulder immediately, bouncing on the mattress behind him as he pressed himself closer to Marco. “Nothing important,” he mumbled, pressing a kiss to Marco’s shoulder, “just texting my friend. Did I wake you?”

Ace pulled back as Marco turned over, propping himself up on his elbow and cupping a freckled cheek. Did he _have_ to look at him like that? Like Ace was the most fantastically wondrous thing that Marco had ever laid eyes on in his life? It set his heart ablaze, having those cool blue eyes wander over his face like Marco was trying to figure out what he had done to deserve waking next to someone so precious. Heck, that was exactly how Ace felt, barely daring to believe that the last 12 hours had happened at all.

“No,” Marco said, “the sun did. We didn’t close the curtains last night.”

Ace grinned at him. “There wasn’t time for that between all the fun we had.”

Marco sighed a contented sound, pleasurably low and warm, and leaned in. Ace’s stomach fluttered excitedly with butterflies as he tilted his chin to receive the kiss, but Marco hesitated, coming to a stop.

“Marco?” Ace prompted quietly, searching those intelligent blue eyes so close to his own. “You okay?”

Marco didn’t answer straight away, thumbing along Ace’s freckles softly and simply looking at him for several heartbeats. Ace didn’t try to speed up a response, letting the other man take his time to wrap his mind around whatever was bothering him.

“You don’t know what last night meant to me,” Marco said at last, tone sincere and calm; Ace’s pulse spiked, nonetheless. “What it means to me to wake up beside you today. How grateful I am for how easily you accepted everything I told you. I hope I can take this to mean that this is the first of many mornings I get to wake to the feeling of you next to me?”

There it was again – that vulnerability that Ace had seen flickers of during the week before becoming defined and poignant during their talk the previous evening. The bearing of his soul, exposing his damaged and soft heart that Marco so painfully obviously, now that Ace _knew_ , kept wrapped and guarded.

Marco’s skin was cool beneath Ace’s warm hands, guiding him to close the gap between them and kissing Marco with as much care and love as he could physically muster. If Marco was concerned that Ace was regretting this, then it was his job to set him straight once and for all. It was his _duty_ , if he may be so gallant, to ensure that Marco was left in no doubt that Ace had every intention of making this the relationship that _lasted_.

“How honest do you want me to be?” Ace asked as he broke the kiss, drawing Marco in by the nape of his neck, preventing him from leaning back in defence of a rebuke that could never possibly come.

“Brutally.”

Ace smiled into another kiss, convinced that Marco could feel his racing pulse where they connected. The thought of telling Marco what he had told Deuce when they had met – that he thought he was falling in love – flashed through Ace’s mind before being snuffed out like a lit candle dumped in water. No, it was too soon for that, despite how last night he had almost forgotten himself and declared he was hopelessly in love with the older man. No, that wouldn’t do, that _couldn’t_ be given voice yet, especially not off the back of a reveal such as a deceased fiancé, for goodness’ sake. There was no way Marco was at that point yet, however much Ace believed he might one day get there, and Ace himself was jumping too soon at something that they could now allow to grow and nurture.

“Okay…”

So he picked his words carefully, favoring something less frank than the endless of stream of adoration he would have preferred to spout.

“I think you’re really cute,” Ace announced. He took Marco completely by surprise, obviously, earning a snort and Marco burying his face into Ace’s shoulder. “You are!” Ace protested with a laugh of his own, affectionately smacking Marco on the back when he subsided into sincere laughter against Ace’s skin, “you’re so cute I could— I dunno— write a thesis on it or something. Stop _laughing_ —” But Ace’s scold was lost in his own giggling, pressing a kiss to the top of Marco’s head.

“That’s _exactly_ the word I’ve been using to describe you for about a week now,” Marco admitted, raising his face to meet Ace’s, cheeks tinged soft pink and eyes crinkled at the corners in that way that Ace had found he really enjoyed, “only in private, of course.” Marco kissed him again, inhaling deep through his nose and giving Ace the impression that he was trying to draw as much as he could out of the contact.

Ace gasped for air, surfacing from the kiss. “I don’t think I’ve ever been called cute,” he admitted, “not as an adult, at least. Mom might have called me that as a kid, I guess.” But Ace didn’t want to talk about his mother right now. For perhaps the first time since her terminal diagnosis had been delivered, Ace now found himself unable to fill his mind with that constant underlying current of worry he had been carrying with him for months. It was pushed to the back of his mind, important but not needed to be dwelt on at present, tucked away safely to allow him to do what Rouge had been pushing for so earnestly and live his life in the here and now.

There was only Marco on his mind, and there was only Marco commanding every one of Ace’s senses, guiding him to roll onto his back with gentle touches and warm kisses.

“Well, I think you’re extremely cute as you are right now,” Marco said, nuzzling into Ace’s neck, stroking feather-light patterns to his chest on which he draped himself. “You’re perfect.”

Ace’s heart sped up at Marco’s words, softening under the simple spell of his honesty.

A long, content sigh issued from Marco when Ace’s fingers slid into his hair, twirling the blond strands and carding through them to unknot the few tangles that clung there. “ _This_ is perfect,” Ace murmured, “all of this. I guess I had nothing to be worried about, after all.”

“You were worried?”

Mild concern lined Marco’s features as he raised his face, sliding a palm under his chin to better angle and catch Ace’s gaze. Ah, jeez, Ace wanted to kiss him again already, his face _so_ close, his lips barely parted in such a tempting manner. He still couldn’t believe his luck at all, not really, despite Marco so obviously being very much _there_ and, Ace remembered with a shiver, completely naked under the sheets. Dressing again after last night hadn’t seemed even remotely important to Marco; Ace hadn’t quite shared the sentiment, pulling his shorts back on after they’d cleaned up, much to Marco’s poorly disguised sorrow. He couldn’t help it – parading around naked in a home that held no warmth outside of that found in Marco’s arms and, admittedly, under the cats’ fluffy tummies, just didn’t sit all that well with Ace.

But the way Marco regarded him now spoke only of care and compassion, _his_ thoughts evidently not lurking furtively somewhere hidden under the covers. It made a thrill tingle along Ace’s spine and coiled in his stomach, so vastly different and yet just as wonderful as revelling in the memory of Marco’s dick sliding against his own.

Marco closed his eyes and leaned into the feeling of Ace’s fingers leaving his hair to stroke soft against his cheek, reassuring him. “It’s only natural, really,” Ace said gently, copying Marco’s previous adoration and thumbing along the soft skin under Marco’s eye. “A part of me was worried that you would wake up and regret everything from yesterday. Telling me about Shanks, telling me you like me, kissing, and touching, and…” Now was _not_ a good time to be getting hard, remembering with vivid clarity the exact, precise pitch of Marco’s voice when it had curled around Ace’s name into orgasm – how Marco had shuddered against him, feeling so _right_ and fulfilling. Ace shifted, pressing his knees together – for all the good that would do – and hoping to god that Marco didn’t think anything of it.

Only he did.

A sigh left Ace as Marco kissed him, fingers abandoning his chin to again stroke along his chest, light and teasing. The grin that spread across Marco’s face was filled with the promise of something exciting, something delectable, the haze of lust returning to his blue eyes so starkly arousing.

“And what?” Marco prompted, tone falsely innocent as cool fingers glided over Ace’s left nipple, earning a twitch. Ace’s body seemed intent on betraying him, his nerves seemingly coming to life and tingling in his skin in the wake of Marco’s touch. Heat pulsed through him, pooling in his groin and making him swell at the gentle pinch to his nipple, those long fingers rubbing the bud to full hardness as Marco remained outwardly calm, as if he were simply asking Ace about the weather instead of turning him on faster than a teenager faced with his crush’s naked form for the first time. Ah, come to think of it, hadn’t that been exactly how they had both reacted the night before?

“You know,” Ace returned that grin, feeling his cheeks begin to heat up yet again as Marco didn’t stop, stroking at his favorite erogenous zone at that languid, lazy pace, “the… touching.”

Marco hummed in response, pinching at the hardened bud and making Ace _swell_ under the covers. “You already said touching,” Marco pointed out. “What else were you worried I would regret?”

Oh, and that wasn’t _fair_ , Ace thought, asking for an answer right as Marco lowered his face to Ace’s other nipple and licked it. Ace arched up into the dual contact, not attempting to withhold the breathy moan that spiraled up his throat. His body _buzzed_ , hips lifting to roll up into nothing, cock straining in his shorts once again like it had in Marco’s lap the night before.

“The frotting,” Ace gasped, shivering. “It felt amazing, and you were—” Ace cut himself off with a soft moan, hands scrabbling to grasp Marco by the shoulder and wrist.

“And I was…?”

Pleasure coursed through Ace as Marco’s words were spoken directly against his skin, the vibrations working wonders on his sensitive nipple. It had been _so_ long since anyone had paid attention to his chest, the last guy he had been intimate with almost a year ago refusing to touch Ace there for reasons well beyond Ace’s scope of understanding. Needless to say, that relationship hadn’t lasted very long, Ace finding the man to be demanding, demeaning, and all-round generally unpleasant.

Not like Marco. _Nothing_ like Marco, who lavished attention on him so thoroughly, sucking and flicking the tip of his tongue to the stiff bud in tandem with gently rolling and rubbing the other between finger and thumb. Marco, the man who Ace had been concerned was so out of his league it was laughable, who so openly cared about Ace’s own comfort and pleasure infinitely more than Ace had ever had the delight of experiencing.

God, he was finally striking lucky in his life. So wildly lucky.

Guiding him with fingers tickled by that thin beard, Ace encouraged Marco to raise his face from where he was laving his attention. Ace pressed a kiss to Marco’s lips, dampened by his work at Ace’s flushed nipple. “And you were everything I’d hoped you would be,” Ace murmured, noting how Marco’s eyes widened slightly. Shit, he was great. “I’ve grown kinda fond of you, Dr. White.”

 _I’m absolutely besotted with you,_ was what Ace really wanted to say, and something about the way Marco looked at him made Ace wonder if perhaps he wasn’t alone in his thoughts of declaring his love right in that moment.

Marco eased himself into a slow kiss, words unspoken pressed to Ace’s lips yet understood as if they had been inked into his skin.

“My only regret would have been letting you leave here without telling you how I feel,” Marco admitted, pecking a kiss to Ace’s cheek, his fingers still continuing their methodical, constant work at that swollen, rosy nipple. His lashes were so _long_ , Ace couldn’t help registering, as they fluttered against his skin in a blink. “I was furious with myself when you left to have a shower. I thought I’d lost my chance.”

Ace’s grin almost bordered into a smirk. “I half expected you to follow me in,” he said, “I left the door unlocked, just in case.”

To Ace’s surprise, Marco let out a small, bright laugh. “Did you really? You knew?”

“Of course I knew,” Ace’s own laugh was shaky, aroused and straining in his shorts as he was, finding it harder by the second to keep his head clear and focused on the conversation the longer Marco carried on playing with his chest, “I also knew you needed a break before you would say anything, so I gave you one.”

“Well, aren’t you kind,” Marco grinned, evidently not overly bothered about being so transparent. It had all worked out in the end, the night playing out far better than Ace could have hoped for, really. He hadn’t been lying – if Marco hadn’t been ready to get so physically intimate, then Ace would have been more than happy to just cuddle and kiss all night.

But Marco had demonstrated with no hesitancy that he was fully ready for it all. For everything that Ace could possibly share with him – every touch, all of his reactions he could draw from him, and every ounce of love that Ace could ever possibly muster.

“So kind, in fact,” Marco’s voice dipped low; a flash of mischief flickered across his expression, causing Ace’s breath to hitch in his chest. That look promised _fun_ , “that I should show you my thanks properly.”

And with that, Marco slid down Ace’s body, pressing a kiss to the center of his chest. His fingers left Ace’s nipple at last, leaving Ace biting his lip at the loss and arching into Marco’s questing hands trailing down the expanse of his abdomen.

“How do you intend to do that?” came Ace’s breathy, heated question, running his fingers through Marco’s hair as he descended, pecking kisses to the patches of psoriasis at his stomach just like he had the night before.

Marco looked up at him, that glint of something _naughty_ still there in his eyes, drawing out a hum of anticipation from Ace.

“By exploring.”

“Huh?”

And Marco pulled the blanket up over his head, covering himself and disappearing completely from view. Ace laughed as he felt Marco dip his tongue into his navel, palms stroking at his waist and hips before coming to a stop at the waistband of his shorts once again.

“What’re you—?” Ace started to laugh but cut himself off at the sensation of Marco palming at his erection through his shorts. Oh, _that_ was what he was doing. That was good. He could do that. Definitely. Yes.

“I’ve been thinking about your freckles,” came Marco’s muffled reply spoken directly against Ace’s skin, “about how you have so many on your cheeks and nose, but virtually none anywhere else. Where are they all? Are they hiding?” Ace spluttered another giggle at such an unexpected response, carding a hand through his black hair as he felt fingers slide between his shorts and skin. “I didn’t get a good look last night, but I think there have to be some hiding down here.”

What a change of pace this was. What a pleasant, soul-warming, _happy_ change of pace. It was nothing short of wonderful to hear Marco sounding so relaxed and at ease with him, quite unlike the nerves that he always seemed to think were so perfectly hidden whenever they had met up before that last night.

Ace raised his hips once again to allow Marco to undress him, groaning at the sensation of nails scratching lightly down his thighs. He was fully hard, he could feel it, and Marco _had_ to be face to face with his dick.

_Oh, please, please let him go down on me._

Marco hummed in plain disappointment, thumbs stroking at Ace’s hips as his shorts were unceremoniously kicked out from under the sheets. “Can’t see any on your hips,” Marco said, and Ace snorted, “that’s somewhat depressing.”

“You really like my freckles, huh,” Ace mused.

“I _love_ them.”

It was like a bolt of electricity had shot down his spine, fizzling out into his nerves and muscles – Ace shuddered, pronounced, and even from under the covers he heard Marco’s appreciative groan mouthed into his hipbone. It was incredible, how those three simple words could have such an effect on him.

“You can’t see properly under there, that’s all,” Ace said breathlessly, rising just enough to fling the covers back and reveal Marco, flushed but painfully eager. If he were to be honest, Ace would have admitted he just wanted to watch his partner work on him, thighs beginning to shiver in anticipation. “There. Better?”

Marco maneuvered Ace’s knees up, shouldering his way in between them and taking his erection in hand. _Oh, yes_ , Ace thought as he rolled his hips up, breath coming in a sharp gasp as he watched precum form at the head, _touch me, please, fuck, Marco I love you_ —

And then Marco snorted a laugh. And another.

While looking at Ace’s cock, his face mere inches away.

“What?” Ace said far too quickly, nerves ramping up immediately as Marco pressed his face into the inside of Ace’s right thigh to muffle himself. “What’s wrong? What’s so funny?”

“You have freckles _here_ ,” Marco laughed.

“Where?”

“ _Here_.” Marco’s grip around his cock tightened slightly. “There’s two freckles on the underside. They’re _so_ cute.”

He felt like he could have _ignited_ in that instant. Ace slammed his head back into the pillows, twitching with a groan as he felt Marco kiss the head before licking at it. Why did he have to find them _there?_ No one had ever told him that he had freckles on his damn _cock_ , but then again, no one had ever taken their time to pay all that much close attention to his body, not like how Marco seemed to enjoy doing.

But oh, that felt _amazing_ – Ace sighed as Marco descended on him, taking him right down to the root in a single bob of his head. Ace’s breath hitched again as he felt Marco’s throat work around him, suppressing the urge to swallow as he held his position for a little longer than a heartbeat. He looked incredible down there, lips stretched around the base before sliding back up to the tip, and when Marco looked up at him through his eyelashes as he released with a _pop_ , Ace was seized by the urge to lick the saliva right off his lips.

“Not cute,” Ace huffed, feigning annoyance as Marco just grinned far more seductively than he really should, “they’re awful.”

Marco clicked his tongue in disagreement. “There’s a couple on the insides of your thighs, too.” _Great._ “I think they’re lovely. Very unique.”

The argument that he didn’t want to be _unique_ because of something so childish was lost in Ace’s throat as Marco sucked him back into that warm mouth, settling himself into a steady rhythm with ease. As Marco took the base in hand in favor of directing his attention on the mid-shaft and head, Ace ran his fingers through blond hair once again and tugged lightly; a flicker of Marco’s tongue to the underside of his head had Ace groaning appreciatively, jaw going slack as Marco took the hint and repeated.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Ace moaned, rolling his hips up into Marco’s mouth, “that feels so good.”

Marco pulled off him again, continuing to stroke his shaft and twist lightly at the head, rendering Ace unable to speak as he bucked up. “Does it?” Ace raised an eyebrow at him – couldn’t he tell? Couldn’t he hear the noises he was making, taste the precum flowing from him like a fountain? “I’m severely out of practice with giving head,” Marco admitted, looking a little embarrassed, “and, well, I want to get better at it again for you, so tell me if there’s anything I should be doing differently.”

_Well aren’t you just the sweetest guy in the whole world?_

Ace tried his damn best to look annoyed, despite figuring he failed spectacularly at it. “You could start by not thinking my freckles are cute.”

“Ah, see, that’s the one thing I can’t change,” Marco smiled, “I think you’re utterly perfect, freckles and all.”

It felt like every muscle in his thighs were going into spasm as Marco sucked him back in, hands sliding down under his hips to grab and squeeze at the meat of his ass. A hot, wet sound escaped Ace’s lips as Marco drew him in down to the base again, guiding him in deeper and _deeper,_ never once gagging around his length as Marco guided his hips up with as much ease as if Ace had been as light as a feather. He was drooling, not stopping to wipe at his chin as it dripped there, intent only on focusing on Ace’s pleasure, set entirely on working him up into a seething mess of lust, apparently.

Ace’s heart raced, felt like it skipped a beat entirely in its haste, when Marco looked up at him. Deep satisfaction was written into his features as he pulled off the length to focus solely on the head, a wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth when Ace gasped and canted upwards. He watched Marco’s throat work to swallow salty precum, the vibrations of his low, pleased groan shivering down Ace’s cock right through to his toes.

“ _Good_ ,” Ace moaned unashamedly, throwing his head back again and stroking through Marco’s hair encouragingly, “you’re _so good_ , Marco.” He felt rather than saw Marco smile around his dick, descending back down onto him and drawing his hips up to meet his face like he was a man dying of starvation and Ace was his feast.

Hell, if this was Marco out of practice, Ace couldn’t _wait_ to see what he was like with his confidence fully restored.

But for how good it was, it was completely one-sided. Ace couldn’t touch Marco at all other than pulling at his hair with steadily building heat, getting closer with each wet slide of full lips down his shaft, throat working around the head. And Ace _wanted_ to touch Marco as well, make him moan without restraint and come undone in his hand, against his tongue, _anything_. Or, even better, have Marco sheath himself inside of him, unravelling together and becoming tangled so tight they might never break apart again.

“ _Marco_ ,” Ace sighed, keenly aware of how his thighs trembled in his effort not to slam them shut on Marco’s head, “this isn’t _fair_ , you’re not getting any— wanna touch—”

“Later,” Marco rasped, his breath hot on the head of Ace’s erection; he sounded _wrecked_ , like he was more turned on than Ace was, somehow, incredibly, “not yet. Let me—”

A wordless cry shivered from Ace as Marco took him back in, fingers digging into his ass and _pulling_. “Marco, I’m— I’m gonna—” But Marco didn’t slow his pace, didn’t stop or acknowledge that he heard Ace trying to warn him. “Marco, _please_ ,” Ace whined desperately, “ _I’m gonna come_.”

Marco only hummed in response, showing no signs of slowing. Heat curled tight in Ace’s groin; he was _so close_ , that promised bliss right _there_ — all he had to do was let himself go, give in to it and release down Marco’s throat into orgasm, and Marco was doing all he could to _make him_ —

_“Marco—”_

Ace’s hips stuttered up and he pulsed, mouth hanging open in a silent cry of helpless abandon. Nails bit into his skin as he spilled into Marco’s mouth, shaking and heaving a tremulous sigh and nothing more. His world went perfectly white, encased in nothing but the shock of orgasm and Marco swallowing around him.

Little twitches coursed through Ace’s body in minute shockwaves as Marco pulled off him slowly and wiped at his chin. Ace’s pulse _raced_ at the sight of him, cheeks flushed and lips shiny with saliva and cum. He couldn’t believe it, stunned beyond words, that _Marco_ had just given him the best head he’d ever received. It was still so much to digest, this whole _Marco actually likes me back_ thing, after all, in the most pleasant and spectacular of ways.

“Are you aware that you taste delicious?” Marco asked conversationally, kissing the inside of Ace’s thigh again directly onto the freckles he had discovered there.

And Ace _laughed_ , shaking with the effort of it, hiding his face in his hands. Unequivocal happiness saturated his mind and his body, sinking into him out of nowhere and fuelling his giggles. And as Marco crawled up over his body with the intent to cuddle, presumably, Ace caught him by the jaw and guided him into a searing hot kiss. A muffled sound of protest issued from Marco, but Ace ignored it; he could taste himself on Marco’s tongue as he licked inside, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t care.

“I am now,” he breathed, smiling as he broke the kiss. “What was that in aid of? You didn’t have to do that.” Ace figured it was too soon to be asking Marco to do it again. And again. And again.

“I said I wanted to show my thanks properly,” Marco replied as if it were obvious, and Ace snorted a laugh. “And,” Marco’s tone dipped low as he ducked his face to bury into the crook of Ace’s neck, “I’ve wanted to taste you so badly, it’s been driving me crazy.” Ace shivered with tingling pleasure, wrapping his arms around Marco’s shoulders. He was hard against him, Ace noticed with a thrill of excitement, yet Marco made no move to pay any attention to himself. “Imagine this: I had more than one patient ask me if I was okay in clinic last week because I lost focus and started thinking about you. How bad’s that?”

“You thought about my dick in the middle of clinic?” Ace asked, teasingly incredulous, and laughed when he felt Marco nod against him. “That’s awful. _You’re_ awful.”

But Marco was anything but awful, as far as Ace was concerned. Marco was everything that was right in the world.

“Not just your dick,” Marco corrected. He inhaled deep, as if steadying himself, on the precipice of announcing something huge and terrifying. “Just you in general. Just…” He hesitated, and Ace felt him swallow against him. Warm hands soothed along Marco’s shoulders, gently encouraging him and seeking to silently remind him that whatever he said, Ace wouldn’t judge him. “I really like you a lot, Ace.” His heart fluttered, absolutely positive that those words carried more weight than they did at face value. “Thank you for taking that first step last night.”

He didn’t deserve Marco’s thanks, as far as he was concerned. Ace had only done what had come naturally, not allowing himself to fall victim to the worries of _is this too soon_ or _am I being too bold_.

With a squeeze of his shoulders, Ace planted a kiss on the side of Marco’s head and said, “see? I knew you’re infinitely cuter than I am.” And then out of nowhere his stomach growled loudly, announcing to the pair that it was not happy to be neglected for as long as it had been, demanding food immediately. Marco raised his face to look at Ace with a grin.

“You want some breakfast?” He asked, kissing Ace on the cheek.

“Maybe,” Ace tried to play it cool, but his stomach betrayed him with another loud moan. “Yes, please,” he reluctantly corrected himself.

“Come on, let’s see what we can find.” Marco rolled out of the bed and bent to pet Dawn, the cat appearing with a trill and a purr. Ace’s gaze was instantly drawn to Marco’s erection when he straightened up again, having not gone down in the slightest and looking, dare he say it, incredibly appetizing.

But Marco pulled on a bathrobe hanging from the back of the bedroom door, tied it around his waist and looked back to Ace where he was wriggling into his pajama shorts again, hiding himself from view.

He’d get him, Ace decided as he took the hand that Marco offered to him. He’d get him in the kitchen, in the living room, in the bathroom and again in bed before the day was over, without fail.

Falling in love was _so_ satisfying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am SO SORRY for the long wait. I feel like I have forgotten how to write, somehow, and that words won't flow anymore. I'm trying to fix that!
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr](https://aishitekuretearigatou.tumblr.com/) if you want to come say hi!
> 
> Comments and kudos let me know if I'm doing something right, and I always love your feedback!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO MANY WORDS AND WELCOME BACK

He had never felt freer, he was fairly certain.

Free to smile, to hope, to believe, and to dream.

The future had opened up again, the shutters baring his heart flung wide open to allow the sun in at last, warming him in its embrace.

If someone had told him even a month ago that he could find solace in the space of eight days, Marco would have laughed at them and asked if they were sure they were sober.

For the first time since Shanks’ death, Marco had fallen asleep without anything alcoholic in his system on the Sunday evening. Wrapped up tightly around Ace, limbs linked and lips puzzled together they had gradually drifted off after a peaceful, perfect day of simply being together. No expectations. No guilt. No worries outside of what to have for lunch, and then dinner. Cooking together had almost brought him to tears, the simplicity of it soothing a deep-seated ache in his heart. Ace had washed and cut potatoes while Marco prepared a salad; a peacefully homely moment if ever he saw one.

That serenity was to be short-lived, though, Marco mused as he drove to work the next morning, radio blaring to the beat of his hands drumming at his steering wheel. Naturally, yesterday had been a pocket in time when Ace could lose himself in another and – not _forget_ , per se, but not have to deal with the weight of Rouge’s condition bearing on his mind for the day. Respite, in a way. There were difficult times ahead; they both knew this, both felt the promise of it earlier that morning when Ace had straightened Marco’s tie for him unnecessarily and mentioned visiting Rouge after work the following day.

But, as promised, he would be there for Ace when it came. That was one certainty, one constant that Marco could dedicate himself to for the foreseeable future, if Ace would grant him that luxury. He would help him, love him, and guide him through it as best he could.

Until then, though, Marco would allow himself to bask in this euphoria that was so alarmingly _wonderful_ and out of place in his life, yet welcomed back like an old, dear friend.

Ace had proven himself to be every bit as into Marco as he was into him, abating the worry that perhaps he was well and truly in over his head and running wild with emotion that should otherwise be kept in check. No – Ace made no attempt to curb his desires, it had transpired, seeing fit to open up Marco’s bathrobe in the kitchen while he made breakfast and stroke him to completion right there at the worktop. Marco had come frighteningly quickly, outrageously turned on by Ace’s lips and teeth working at his collarbone, his neck, his mouth, hand palming to cup his balls while jerking him off.

And again later in the day, Marco remembered with an internal shudder and content sigh, Ace had moaned sweet words of adoration to his ear while grinding into his lap, fisting their erections together and coming with a sigh of Marco’s name to welcoming, eager lips.

It was utter bliss, Marco decided, being both fulfilling and exhilarating. And even now, knowing full well that Ace was driving right behind him on their way to work, Marco missed him. Ached for him in ways that he had thought lost forever, never to be rediscovered.

They had agreed before setting out that Marco would go to the department first and get set up while Ace wandered over to Starbucks in outpatients to pick up coffee. Luckily, Ace agreed with Marco’s only worry regarding this relationship they were embarking on; revealing it to the rest of cardiology, and by extension the rest of the hospital, was not a good idea.

While not going into detail, Marco had explained to Ace over a fantastic dinner of grilled salmon and homemade potato wedges that he had no desire to communicate anything about his personal life or relationships to his colleagues outside of Thatch. It had nothing to do with Ace as an individual, Marco had stressed, and everything to do with the gossiping nature and the tendency that people had towards twisting the truth. The judging stares. The inevitable homophobia that crept in like a fungus, altering people’s opinions of them both.

Ace had put forward the suggestion that they keep quiet until he moved departments; after that, if it ever came up in conversation, or if anyone ever saw them together at lunch and commented, then they wouldn’t deny it. It was a good compromise, Marco had agreed, and certainly gave them the privacy needed for the time being.

Which in itself brought up a somewhat saddening prospect – Ace leaving.

But no, Marco decided with a small shake of his head as he pulled into a space at the top of the multi-storey, no, that wasn’t something to think about right now. Another inevitable that he couldn’t escape. But as long as he could keep Ace in his private life, then losing him professionally was something that he would be able to do in a heartbeat.

With a thrill of happiness, Marco returned Ace’s smile as he pulled into the space next to him and silenced the engine. There he was, radiant with his smile that shone like the sun, effortlessly lifting Marco’s spirits. Sporting the evidence of having not returned home after their fun on Saturday with the Thatch family, Marco noted laughably belatedly as Ace got out of his car. Why hadn’t either of them thought of it? Ace stood in his shorts and red polo shirt, seemingly unaware that he wasn’t appropriately dressed for work as he locked his car and hurried around the bonnet to stand far too close to Marco. He really should have lent Ace some smart clothes, regardless of how they would probably be too big for him.

The thought of Ace in nothing but one of Marco’s shirts was… certainly welcomed.

“I’ll see you soon,” Ace said happily, sliding his palm into Marco’s briefly and jolting him out of a train of thought that was in no way acceptable for the workplace, “flat white espresso, was it?”

“Ah, no, just a latte please,” Marco corrected, “medium or large, whatever you’re having.”

He was just about to ask where Ace had got the idea of an espresso from – perhaps it was his own order? – when Ace laughed and said apologetically, “sorry, force of habit. That’s Deuce’s order, my bad.”

Who?

A vague memory from Saturday surfaced slowly as he watched Ace leave after a brief squeeze of his hand; something to do with Law and a junior doctor who had been in vascular surgery. Ace’s friend? That sounded about right, even if the memory was strangely tangled with the image of a grain of rice on Ace’s cheek.

And the thought was gone again the moment he turned from his car and left for the admin building, whipped clean from his mind instantly as Marco went straight back to fondly recalling the way Ace had snuggled into him with a groan when the alarm had gone off that morning. Ace hadn’t enjoyed getting up so early, muttering darkly about Marco’s strange habit of arriving at work a solid hour before was strictly necessary. But he had done it, to give credit where credit was due, and he had done so without any further complaints once he was showered, dressed, and stuffed full with as much toast as Marco could talk himself into piling on his partner’s plate.

Oh, that felt nice. _Partner_.

They hadn’t discussed it, and it was definitely far too soon to be putting a label on whatever this was, but Marco had the distinct impression that Ace was thinking along the same lines as he was already. It was insane, really, and not at all anywhere along the lines of _normal_ for him, yet it made Marco feel happier than just about anything else in recent memory.

And so for the first time since the early days of his career as a senior physician, Marco entered the cardiology admin department without a shred of darkness hanging over him, his steps light, head held high, and a smile on his face as he greeted Vista when the other doctor came out of his own office. It was like he’d given himself a shot of something mellowing, leaving him blissed out and soft to the surroundings that had previously done nothing to lift his spirits.

Sitting at his desk, Marco was visited by the desire to _decorate_ as the others had done, such as perhaps pinning some photos to the wall to accompany the one of his cats, or maybe going back to displaying his cards from patients again. Or, even better, just filling up the shelf above his monitor with things that belonged to, or reminded him of, Ace. Ah, he really was a romantic at heart, wasn’t he? Marco grinned to himself, contemplating whether it would be too pathetic to keep the disposable coffee cup that Ace would bring back for him – his usual travel mug forgotten at home thanks to the excitement of preparing for the day with Ace – as a sentimental reminder of the first thing that Ace had bought for him.

A knock at his door brought Marco out of his idyllic thoughts, making him jump slightly; it was too soon for Ace to be done picking up their drinks. But when Thatch poked his head around the door with a smile, Marco relaxed back against his seat and returned the expression in kind.

“You’re early again,” Marco pointed out as way of greeting his best friend, swivelling in his chair as Thatch slipped in and closed the door, taking a seat himself, “what’s got into you? Should I be concerned?”

“I’m kicking the habit of getting in after Miranda,” Thatch grinned wide, slinging one leg over the over and settling to rest an elbow on the back of the chair he had pulled closer to Marco, “I swear on my kids she waits until I’m not here to pile paperwork on my desk. My theory is that if I’m here before her it’ll deter her. What do you think?”

Marco raised an eyebrow in response. It was a stupid thought – his secretary would give him work regardless of what time he came in – but it was nice to see that Thatch was making an effort, whatever the real reason.

“Can I be brutally honest?” Thatch nodded, encouraging Marco to not hold back. “I think it’s about time you stopped letting management lead you round by the nose, and get yourself back to clinic,” Marco said, perhaps a touch too bluntly; Thatch could take it, though, and certainly seemed to agree at any rate. “At least three quarters of that paperwork you have on your desk is the revalidating crap you’re still doing. I saw two of your regular patients last week who asked if you’d left; they were pretty upset at first. You’re a _physician_ , for goodness’ sake, and you’ve completely recovered from your surgery, so why not just tell the managers to find a new idiot to do their dirty work?”

“You calling me an idiot?” Thatch frowned, and Marco snorted – trust Thatch to latch onto that keyword and nothing else. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. It’s draining the life from me, I gotta admit, and even Ace seems bored as all hell with it. He’s ready to move on, if you ask me – good thing his job’s only temporary. He’s on secondment from whatever he was doing beforehand, if I remember correctly. Although,” Marco didn’t like the way Thatch’s eyes twinkled all of a sudden, his face lighting up in a grin, “wouldn’t it be in both of your best interests if I kept on doing this mundane work forever?”

Yes, it would be. But a lifetime of staring longingly after Ace as he passed by Marco’s office would never be achievable, even if his placement had been permanent – there would still be a time when Ace would be out of work for a while. Days, weeks, months – neither could guess at this point. Neither wanted to. But whatever happened, Marco had decided that he would take time out as well. It almost physically hurt him to think it, but patients be damned, honestly. There would be other clinics to slot them into, other doctors to take over his lists in the cath lab and beyond. But there would never be a time when Ace needed him more.

“So how did Sunday go?” Marco changed the subject hastily, giving himself away better than just about anything else could have done – but when Thatch’s expression clouded with something harrowing, he immediately regretted his choice of topic. “Oh no, no one _actually_ lost a finger, did they?”

“Nah, nothing that dramatic, just some scrapes and bumps,” Thatch said with a shake of his head, looking very much like a man who had witnessed war first-hand and wished to forget it, “but dear god, Marco, I know you hate it when I say this, but you’re lucky you don’t have kids. It was carnage. You ever tried herding thirty children from one room to another without losing anyone? Without one beating another shitless just for the hell of it?” He sighed dramatically. “I don’t envy teachers. This job is nothing compared to the living nightmare that must be every working day for them.”

A touch theatrical, but if Thatch was anything, it was precisely that.

“So you had fun?” Marco’s grin broadened at Thatch’s look of mild disgust. “Good. At least that’s over until Sophia turns twelve in September.”

Thatch made a curious choking noise, bringing a hand to his forehead. “Don’t remind me,” he groaned, “you know what she wants this year? A horse. A damn _horse_. No idea where that came from; she’s never had riding lessons, never went through that phase that Bianca did where she liked to pretend she was a unicorn.” He sighed again at Marco’s snort, crossing his arms over his chest and perking up a little, evidently keen on moving past the subject of his weird and wonderful daughters. “But anyway, we don’t have to worry about that for a few months.”

“ _We?”_

“Oh, yeah. I’m gonna need all the help I can get to convince her that she doesn’t need a horse. She can have as many lessons as she likes, but we’re not getting an actual living horse.”

That was fair enough, Marco agreed.

“So what happened with you and Ace on Saturday?” Thatch asked, slapping on the Dad Look so efficiently that Marco actually squirmed under his gaze. Shit, did he know? How? “Not like him to turn down a meal, is it? He’s always getting crumbs everywhere in my office; the guy never stops eating. Did he say anything to you afterwards?”

Oh.

It didn’t feel right, lying outright to Thatch, even about something like this. Marco found he couldn’t quite meet his friend’s hazel eyes, dropping his gaze to his knee and thinking furiously. A snippet of the truth couldn’t hurt, could it? Just the bare minimum, enough to take the edge off and reassure Thatch that it hadn’t been anything that he or his family had done to make Ace want to leave early. Even though, Marco realised with a small huff of a laugh, it _had_ actually been the fault of one particular family member.

“Ace found out about Shanks,” Marco said levelly, looking up just in time to catch Thatch’s eyes widen slightly, “and I guess he just wasn’t in the mood for celebrating afterwards. He’s got a big heart – he’s highly empathetic.”

“I’ve noticed,” Thatch mumbled, lacing his fingers together in his lap, “jeez, Marco, that’s…” he paused, as if gathering himself in search of the right words, before saying, “I’m so sorry.” Sometimes, simple was best. “How did he find out? Was it one of the girls?” He clicked his tongue with a sigh. “Sophia, right? When they went to get drinks? I thought she was acting weird in the evening. She didn’t even come down for cake when we called for her.”

Marco nodded. “Don’t get mad at her, though,” he warned when Thatch’s expression darkened, “it wasn’t done out of malice or carelessness. Ace is fine, I’m fine, and we talked about it afterwards.”

“You talked about it?” Thatch’s eyebrows shot up so fast that Marco was mildly impressed they didn’t launch off his face. “You? Willingly?”

Marco shrugged in what he hoped to be a nonchalant manner. “It was quite cathartic, actually,” he said truthfully, “I felt a lot better after getting it out in the open. I feel great now, in fact.”

There was something off about the way Thatch eyed him with a sudden frown – Marco couldn’t help but feel like he was being keenly scrutinised, not unlike how a teacher would just _know_ when a student was lying to them and would pin them with the most scrupulous of stares until the truth was blurted out. Or, more likely, an even more ridiculous lie spilled in its place.

“I _do_ ,” Marco stressed, folding his arms across his chest, “I’m okay, really. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be.”

Thatch hummed in thought, tapping his thumbs together. That genius brain of his was working fast, Marco could tell. Whenever Thatch had been grasping for a diagnosis in his student days or was struggling to recall the correct treatment as a junior, his right brow would quirk and his lips would purse… exactly as they were both doing now.

“You’d thought about telling him all of this beforehand?” Marco’s stomach seemed to slip from his abdomen and flop somewhere around his feet. “Hm. I don’t recall you ever telling your secretary the truth about what happened; she thinks you guys broke up before she joined. They all do. Strange, really, how you’d contemplate telling an almost complete stranger about the most traumatic thing to ever happen to you. Unless, of course,” his lips curved into a wry grin – the self-satisfied grin that Marco sincerely _disliked_ because it meant that Thatch knew _he was right_ , “Ace _isn’t_ some random guy to you anymore and I was completely correct in guessing that the two of you quite like each other a little more than co-workers tend to do.”

And is if on cue – as if he had been standing outside the door the whole time, waiting for his line to come up – Ace swung open the door with difficulty at that precise moment, two cups of coffee clutched in his hands.

Wearing the same clothes that he had left Thatch’s house in two days previous.

Beaming at Marco before belatedly realising that Thatch was also in the office, gaping at him; his eyebrows were never coming back down after this.

“You!” Thatch spluttered, pointing dramatically at Ace, who didn’t seem to catch on to the grand reveal he had just unwittingly pulled, “oh, my— your _clothes_ — _Marco, what the_ —”

And it then suddenly seemed to click for Ace, eyes darting from Thatch’s horror-struck own to Marco’s that were immediately hidden behind his palm.

“Shut the door, Ace,” Marco muttered before Thatch could stammer anything else. He didn’t think he could deal with anyone walking in on what could potentially turn into one of the most embarrassing conversations of his adult life.

Ace did as he was told, shuffling nervously from foot to foot while Thatch continued to work through his internal dilemma, apparently, gaping from Marco to Ace and back again. The cup of coffee was gratefully accepted when Ace held it out to Marco, shooting him a look that clearly said _why the hell is he in here_.

“ _So_ ,” Thatch began, deciding to direct the question at Marco rather than Ace, slapping his palms to his knees and leaning in, “you wanna tell me why Ace hasn’t got changed for the last two days, Marco?”

“My washing machine broke!” Ace gasped before Marco could fathom a family-friendly way of announcing he hadn’t given Ace the chance to leave his side for the last 36 hours, “it broke so bad I have nothing else to wear!” Marco’s groan had him flinching, panic written across his face as if he were a teenager who had just been caught by his parents sucking faces with his partner. What kind of god-awful lie was _that?_ “All my work clothes are still dirty so I didn’t have any choice but to—”

“You’re telling me,” Thatch cut in with such a disbelieving no-nonsense tone that Marco was honestly surprised Ace didn’t wither there on the spot, “that you only possess five work shirts? That your only casual clothes are those that you’re wearing?” He snorted without laughter, yet amusement was beginning to creep back into his features by way of that sparkle returning to his eyes. “Please. I know you’re both obsessed with each other; there’s no point trying to hide it now.” He directed his attention back to Marco, who somehow found the strength through the tidal waves of humiliation to meet his gaze. “Tell me everything.” Marco’s despairing sigh was skilfully ignored. “C’mon, don’t look at me like I’m your father.”

“Don’t act like you are, then,” Marco quipped before he could help it.

Damn, he _really_ should have thought of lending his clothes to Ace sooner. Or stopping off at Ace’s apartment on the way to work – that would have been the better idea. For someone so intelligent, Marco sure could be a fool when emotions were involved; he could admit that much to himself, at least.

“There’s nothing to tell,” Marco continued calmly, hoping that Ace would follow his lead, “nothing interesting, anyway. Like I said, we talked about Shanks, and…” he paused, gaze flickering up to Ace briefly; he was already looking straight back, plastic coffee cup lid resting against his chin, eyes wide yet gentle, like he trusted whatever direction Marco wanted to take this conversation in. Lies, the complete truth – anything would go, Ace’s look told him, and he’d go along with Marco’s choice. But oh, did he ever look _so_ endearing like that.

“And?” Thatch prompted, popping the tiny bubble of affection that had unwittingly began to form in Marco’s chest, “then what?” He swivelled in his seat back to where Ace stood leaning against the locked door, barely giving Marco a second to think. “Who came out with it first?” He sighed at Ace’s raised eyebrow. “Who took the huge step and confessed their undying affections to the other?”

“I did,” Ace answered, and Thatch beamed at him.

“I thought it’d be you,” he chuckled, but didn’t elaborate. Instead, he asked, “so did you sleep together?” and caused Ace to choke on the sip of coffee he had attempted to take. It couldn’t be huge amounts of fun to have the man who was effectively his boss quiz him on his sex life, after all.

Marco, however, had seen the question brewing in his best friend since the moment Ace had walked into the office; he was actually a little surprised that Thatch had waited this long to ask the question he was dying to know the answer to. “No, we didn’t,” Marco clarified, and while not technically a lie, he still couldn’t quite meet Thatch’s eyes, “and even if we had, you wouldn’t be privy to the details anyway.”

Thatch, much to Marco’s dismay, decided to completely disregard him.

“What’s he like in the sack?” Thatch pestered Ace excitedly, the indignation of having this secret kept from him evidently wearing off in record time, “he’s gotta be one extreme or the other. C’mon, Shanks never spilled the specifics on him, so I’m counting on you, Ace.”

“Why do you want to know that?” Marco frowned, noting with a thrill of delight how Ace turned violently crimson and bit his lip _so_ absurdly wonderfully, “the last thing I’d ever want to know is what you’re like in bed, Ed. Don’t be disgusting.”

“I’m a gentle lover,” Thatch informed Ace in a matter-of-fact tone, once again acting like he hadn’t heard Marco – and again, with a grin, ignoring the way Marco groaned loudly at this piece of unwanted information, “can’t be dealing with any of that rough and nasty, y’know?”

“Ed, don’t traumatise us, for the love of God—”

“Hey, I’ll have you know I am a passionate soul in the sheets! No detail is spared, no corners cut! I would hope you lavish the same kind of love and care onto this young man.”

“ _Ed_ —”

Ace snorted at Thatch’s indignant look he shot at Marco, stifling it with a quick sip of coffee. With a frown at Thatch, Marco mirrored Ace, granting himself a moment to indulge in his latte before trying to figure out how to get Thatch out of the office and score some alone time with Ace before Nami arrived and delved into their usual Monday morning chat.

The chance presented itself in the form of Ace, unexpectantly, when he hooked a thumb down under the belt of his shorts, pulled his underwear up into view by the waistband, and announced, “I can’t tell you anything about what Marco’s like in bed, but I _can_ tell you that he has cats on his boxers.” And sure enough there they were, Marco’s pair of underpants with the cat faces printed on that Whitey had thought appropriate to buy for him a couple of Christmases ago. When had Ace found _those_ , and more importantly, why had he decided to wear _them_ and not something more sensible such as, for example, a shirt for work?

Thatch laughed so loud and for so long that they were interrupted by Cornelia knocking on the door, blinking at them bemusedly when Ace let her in with a sheepish grin. There was no way Marco was ever going to hear the end of this.

But as Thatch made to leave the small office in the wake of their colleague, he seemed to remember something of vital importance. Closing the door again with a soft click, he turned back to face Marco and Ace, who had moved to stand closer to Marco than could reasonably be argued as platonic, and smiled softly – almost sadly – at them. It almost didn’t suit him, on the verge of being jarring and out of place on his usual goofy-grinned features, but Marco _knew_ that look. And he hadn’t seen it for many, many years now.

“Listen,” he said gently, looking between best friend and co-worker with an air of calm that was so at odds with his previous nonsense, “teasing aside, it’s quite plain that you two have some kind of connection outside of physical attraction. I don’t think just a pretty face could ever win Marco over, for starters. There’s gotta be a _whole_ lot more to you than your looks, Ace.” Marco couldn’t help but frown deeply, yet the expression dropped into something far more pleasant the moment Ace laid a comfortingly warm palm to his shoulder. “I don’t know what brought you two together, and I don’t need to know. But please,” he almost begged Ace, tone dipping low and unguarded, beseeching him, “whatever you do, don’t hurt him. Don’t break his heart. Marco is as good as a brother to me; I won’t tolerate anything hurting him again. If this is just a bit of fun for you – which I sincerely hope isn’t the case – then you need to stop before this goes too far.”

“And _you_ need to stop before I get angry,” Marco sighed.

Thatch’s care for him was a thing of beauty; it always had been. At the start of every relationship since knowing the man, Thatch had always given Marco’s date a warning much like he now gave Ace. A test, he liked to call it, to gauge whether the guy in question was even remotely good enough for Marco. If he got scared by something like Thatch’s words, then he wasn’t worth it – simple as that.

But Thatch couldn’t possibly know of what lay beneath the surface of _this_ particular partner, or understand that a boundless, selfless love afflicted him, speaking volumes of Ace’s capacity to _care_. Of the depths that Marco’s feelings already ran; of the manner in which Ace’s story had become entwined with his own, like liquid gold seeping into the cracks of a broken cup. Something so pure, so beautiful, restoring that which had been irreparable to a brilliance that outshone its beginnings.

Ace was Marco’s gold. He was Marco’s new beginning. He was the key to something so profoundly heart-breaking that, if asked under any other circumstances, Marco likely wouldn’t have been able to face.

But for him, he could do it. For him, he was sure, he could do just about anything.

“I’ll look after him,” Ace said firmly, squeezing Marco’s shoulder. Something seemed to _spark_ within Marco at the conviction in his tone, causing him to look up at Ace to witness his determined, set expression, as if Thatch were offering him a challenge. “And he’ll take care of me, too.”

The implication rang clear as a bell to Marco, like a bolt of lightning illuminating the horrors of a tragedy yet to come. _He’ll take care of me, too_. The rock-solid belief that Marco would be there the moment Ace’s world collapsed in on itself. The enormity of trust that he was placing on someone so new to his life.

Marco sure hoped Thatch didn’t read too much into that statement, remaining ignorant of Rouge’s condition for just a little while longer. It would come to light the moment that Ace got signed off work for compassionate leave – there was no avoiding it becoming common knowledge at that point – but for the time being they could convince anyone they wished that everything was perfect and wonderful.

“Ed,” Marco said gently, laying his hand atop of Ace’s at his shoulder and giving it a small squeeze, pulse speeding with the spark of warmth it brought him, “everything’s just fine. We’ll be okay. I promise,” he added with a sincere smile when Thatch continued to watch him closely.

“It better be,” Thatch muttered, looking from Marco to Ace and back again with such concern in his hazel eyes that Marco felt almost _guilty_ of something he definitely hadn’t even done. “If I find out that either one of you is being an ass to the other—sorry, Marco, I love you dearly, but that doesn’t give you free rein to mess around with my favorite lad—”

Ace’s small laugh cleared the tension from the air before Marco could verbalise the highly sarcastic retort that danced on the tip of his tongue. “He won’t,” Ace grinned reassuringly, encouraging Marco’s fingers to relax and part to accept his own threading between them, “and I won’t. Promise.” He held out his free hand to his boss, extending his little finger for Thatch to raise a questioning brow at. “Pinky promise?”

If Ace had been looking for a way to get Thatch to finally leave the office, he had found it. And very nicely done, too, if Marco was feeling indulgent. With an amused snort and a shake of his head, Thatch bade them goodbye and left them in peace, gaze lingering only briefly on their interlocked fingers with something akin to doubt, or perhaps reservations.

He couldn’t blame him, though. Had he been in Thatch’s shoes, Marco would almost definitely be skeptical at best of a new relationship such as theirs. But that was just it, wasn’t it? It would be so easy for those outside of their bubble to peer in and judge, to take evidence and base assumptions on something that they didn’t share, couldn’t hope to feel. Thatch hadn’t felt the way Ace kissed. Thatch hadn’t heard how he had formed the words that shaped his confession of affection. Thatch hadn’t felt the heat, seen the sincerity in Ace when he had learned the truth about Shanks.

He didn’t _know._ And Marco didn’t want him to ever begin to understand what lay within Ace’s heart or what Ace was capable of offering. It was private; it was special.

It was, most importantly, Marco’s.

A long, whistling sigh streamed from between Ace’s lips the moment the office door clicked shut again, all of the tension he had presumably unknowingly held leaving him immediately. Even Marco felt himself deflate slightly, although his feeling of relief to see the back of Thatch likely couldn’t compare to what Ace had to be experiencing.

“I’m so in awe of how much he cares about you,” Ace said with a smile, looking impressed when Marco met his eyes, “I better remember not to get on the wrong side of him for any reason.”

Returning his grin with a mounting sense of excitement that seemed to bubble up from nowhere, egged on by the stillness that hung in the air on Thatch’s departure, Marco guided Ace by the hips to sit on his lap with a soft sound of protest. Without hesitation he pressed a kiss to Ace’s throat, barely containing his urge to lave his tongue to the warm skin and suck. Ace was always warm, Marco had noticed, and again this thought struck him as he delved under that damned red polo shirt to stroke lazy lines up Ace’s spine.

“Marco,” Ace giggled, giving him a half-hearted push at his shoulder, “the door’s unlocked; anyone could walk in.”

In that precise moment, Marco honestly, truly could not care. The chief of medicine himself could saunter in and Marco wouldn’t be inclined to tip Ace out of his lap. Great, rolling waves of affection, of that gentle, pleasant prickle of heat that sparked along his skin whenever he touched Ace, threatened to pull Marco under – and he wasn’t convinced he could find it in himself to fight it anymore.

“Two minutes,” Marco mumbled to Ace’s skin, revelling in the way Ace looped an arm around his shoulder to draw him in close, “just give me two minutes to enjoy you.”

Two minutes to indulge; two minutes to feel. Two minutes to forget that he had clinic that day, that he had a stack of paperwork to go through with Nami, and probably close to a hundred emails to wish he could delete.

Just two more minutes to simply _be_ with Ace, to guide him by the chin into a slow, searching kiss of the likes that seemed to spark fire between them where they touched. An eternity of longing poured into that kiss, that gentle tug at the back of his neck where Ace held him close, and Marco could do nothing but give into the touch.

He wished this moment could last forever, and was completely convinced that Ace felt the same. To break apart and stand was to accept that life would not allow every day to be a sleepy Sunday that permitted them to luxuriate in each other’s touches and holds. Life was simply not that kind.

Again, Marco noticed the sense of total calm that enveloped him, that had done since entering the department, thanks to Ace. Despite knowing what was to come, and even though he was skating on very thin ice with regards to the time and how long they could continue to move against each other like nothing else in the world mattered, Marco was utterly at peace.

“Ace?” He mouthed to Ace’s lips, pulling back just enough to speak.

“Hm?”

Warm fingers spun into his hair. Calm, loving gray blinked at him, gentle in their silent encouragement that he speak his mind. Marco’s heart _swelled_ with the words that he could not allow himself to say.

“Where _did_ you find those cat boxers? I thought I’d hidden them away.”

Ace’s laughter filled the office, bright and clear and as warming as the sun. “Now that’s no fun!” He eventually managed, grin refusing to leave his lips. “If I tell you where they were, you’ll go looking and know what else I found.”

Ace shook into peals of laughter at the horrified look that Marco offered, hiding his grin behind fingers fanned wide. It suited him _so_ perfectly, happiness did, that Marco almost found himself not caring what hidden atrocities Ace had uncovered.

Almost.

Maybe tonight would be best spent sorting out some of the lesser-used cupboards in his apartment…

* * *

Being with Ace, it transpired, made Marco incredibly happy. So happy, in fact, that others picked up on it. That wasn’t to say that before that wonderful Saturday night he hadn’t been an approachable, cheerful person to begin with – on the contrary, Marco consistently got feedback (and heard secretaries gossiping in corridors) that he was ‘one of the nicer doctors’, always welcoming and available for a chat whenever necessary. In fact, only Thatch ever came out tops over the others, often being patients’ requested doctor; it certainly helped that he was the only one beaming with all of his teeth showing in the photos on the department’s website page, apparently.

So it came as something of a surprise when, after picking Nami up into a hug, spinning her round and kissing her on the forehead once she was back on her feet, Marco suddenly had the entire secretarial team cornering him in the kitchen to ask if he had perhaps won the lottery (and if he had, would he consider sharing). Yes, he had, in a manner of speaking, he was only too happy to inform them. Marco had gained something far better than wealth and riches.

And no, they were not welcome to any portion of Ace or his heart, however tiny.

* * *

Even his patients noticed that something had changed in him.

“Dr. White, you’re positively _exuding_ good vibes today!” one woman in her thirties was only too happy to inform Marco in clinic on Wednesday morning, interrupting his monologue about how her ECG and echocardiogram had both come back perfectly normal. “The last time I saw you, you had an aura of misery hanging around you.” Had he really? “It was very off-putting during the consultation, so I was a bit worried about what I might find today. Can I ask what happened?”

What had happened was that Marco had again woken up that morning to Ace wrapped around him, his face tucked into Marco’s collarbone, leg shoved between Marco’s thighs to anchor himself in close, hair messy and falling over his forehead while he slept on; while Marco again attempted to count his infinite number of freckles.

“I woke up with the warmth of the sun this morning.”

The patient seemed pleased with this response.

* * *

Tuesdays, as Ace had learned the week before, were Marco-less days in the cardiology department. If he wasn’t teaching med students, then he was on CCU. If not on CCU, he might have been listed on for the rapid access clinic. If not off saving lives, he was probably despairing in a meeting that he would assure Ace that he didn’t want to attend, or otherwise be collared into doing something that his good, giving nature couldn’t refuse.

That was fine by Ace. After all, it was unreasonable to hope for a physician to sit obediently in his office all day, ready to lavish affection and attention on the newest addition to the team whenever said newest addition decided that he was in dire need of Marco.

It was also unreasonable to want to start the day off by waking in Marco’s bed entwined with him, Ace knew, but that had done nothing to help quell the dull ache that accompanied him returning alone to his apartment the evening before. Marco hadn’t invited him back, and so Ace hadn’t pushed the subject.

Granted, yes, Marco had finished his working day at least an hour after Ace; knowing him as well as Ace was growing to, he didn’t doubt that upon finishing his Monday afternoon clinic, Marco had then stayed just that little bit later in order to catch up with some stray emails, or even just to talk to the friendly receptionist in medical outpatients who Ace thought looked a little like a startled pelican.

That wasn’t to say that they hadn’t been in contact, though; the text conversation that evening had allowed Ace to fall asleep smiling, thinking thoughts that soon morphed into dreams of Marco as a child playing with his older sister, Whitey. In return, Ace sure did hope that Marco had enjoyed the innumerable stories about Ace’s cousins, Sabo and Luffy, and how much fun they had getting into trouble as kids.

Sabo, who was studying in Germany with his girlfriend Koala (an affectionate nickname picked up from her habit of clinging to Sabo’s arm whenever they were together), had then messaged Ace to get the latest information on his love life. The timing was too perfect, the questions too precise and woven with knowledge, for the text to have been a coincidence. On grilling his best friend for answers, Deuce had unashamedly replied with _well you weren’t going to remember to tell him, so I thought I should_.

Ace wasn’t convinced he was happy for Sabo to know already, but what was the worst that could happen? It wasn’t like Sabo was going to turn up at his doorstep, demanding to know every detail of a relationship that had barely even begun. If anything, Sabo would come home when Rouge’s condition dictated that he should come see his aunt one last time. Taking leave from the university was difficult enough as it was, Ace knew from Sabo’s countless monologues about the institute, but they were sure to let him leave for such exceptional circumstances.

So, yes – all in all, despite missing Marco as he had brushed his teeth in the morning, and despite how he kept catching himself walking past Marco’s office in an unconscious desire to catch a glimpse of what wasn’t even there, Ace’s mood was sky-high. He was _happy_. Sincerely and beautifully happy. For the first time in months, he didn’t have to force his cheery smile when Vivi came to talk to him. He didn’t fake interest in his manager’s weekend plans, finding himself at least engaged enough to keep his thoughts from wandering to his lunch.

And perhaps best of all was how the sense of dread upon getting a text had lessened, always beaming and enjoying the little flutter of butterflies in his stomach when he saw Marco’s name pop up.

Yet this also brought about a new, unsettling dose of guilt, the ramifications of allowing this happiness to effectively silence and numb the previously ever-present ache of worry for Rouge. In a sense, Ace supposed he was betraying his mother by finding peace in parallel with her decline. However, he remembered once again, he was actually doing exactly what she wished for and was continuing to live his life even in the face of an inevitable, unavoidable outcome.

If he thought about it for too long then it became messy and chaotic again which, understandably, Ace was not keen on letting happen. He was no stranger to letting guilt and worry gnaw away at him, causing unfounded stress and anxiety. Why, ever since deciding to work at the hospital he had had to contend with Roger’s role and reputation, allowing the whispers from colleagues to follow and haunt him where perhaps others might have laughed such accusations off. No, he hadn’t relied on Roger to get him his first job there and, regardless of what anyone said, he had not asked him to arrange this secondment into cardiology. Roger had done that off his own back, only informing Ace that the specialty he had expressed interest in was ready to accept him once it was agreed and signed, much to Ace’s outrage. Had he been _allowed_ , dammit, he would have interviewed like anyone else and dealt with the outcome independently.

It had been for the right reasons, at least. Roger had done it to show he cared, demonstrating his _love language_ , as Rouge had put it one evening many weeks ago when Ace had expressed his fury to her. He cared, even if Ace couldn’t always recognise the signs as such. But he was learning to – and so was Roger.

But that didn’t necessarily mean he was about to forgive his father for the weeks upon weeks of burying his head in the sand, though. He would see Rouge today in Roger’s absence and he would love every second of it. Whatever he felt for Roger, Ace still couldn’t wait to see the effects of having her husband with her all weekend would have had on Rouge.

But sitting here in his car thinking about it wasn’t going to achieve anything, and if he dawdled for much longer then Rouge would begin to wonder whether he had stood her up. So, with a firm nod and a tap of his phone to his forehead, Ace made to open the door of his little car.

His phone buzzed to indicate the arrival of a new message right as he locked the door, and on unlocking the screen with his fingerprint, Ace snorted so hard he had to stop for a second.

A picture, presumably from that morning, had been sent. Marco’s lean, muscular legs made up most of the photo, both cats twisting around his ankles and looking imploringly up at the camera.

_Think they missed you overnight_ , read the caption below, followed by a little heart emoji. Heat flooded Ace’s chest immediately, heart seeming to swell to at least three times its normal size as he took in the words over and over. The implications – oh, the implications! And barely disguised, too!

Giggling at how cute his boyfriend – ah, no, bad Ace, _not_ boyfriends, no, must discuss – was, Ace tapped out the reply _really? Looks to me like they just want feeding_ with three winking emojis following. The urge to message again immediately won in the battle with his pride, and Ace followed up with _I missed them too. All day. Would love to cuddle up with them when they’re next free_.

The reply came too quickly, misspelled, and Ace snorted at the mental image of Marco rushing to hastily text back without proofreading – _they’re free every day. Aby time. Don’t feel you ever have to be polite, just come ober._

Ah, god fuck it all to hell and back, Marco was so stupidly cute.

And Ace was so stupidly late for his much-coveted time with his mother.

Pocketing his phone after sending a single kissy-faced emoji, Ace hurried up the steps into the reception of the hospice. It was, as ever, bright and clean and full of sunshine in the late June afternoon, the huge arching windows working their magic to make the place feel relaxing and homely. And, just as he had hoped, Mary was there at the reception desk to greet him with her trusty visitor’s book.

“And here’s my favorite visitor,” Mary smiled, eyes crinkling as she fondly surveyed Ace not unlike a grandparent would their only grandson, “how are you keeping, Ace? I haven’t seen you for almost a week!”

He knew she meant well, that she probably had genuinely noticed his longer than usual absence and was eager to have their routine friendliness pick up right where they had left off, but all it managed to achieve was the driving of yet another spike of guilt deep into Ace’s heart. It really _had_ been near on a week since he’d visited, hadn’t it? And even then it had only been short, barely more than a pit stop before being consoled in Marco’s arms.

“Ah, but don’t worry,” Mary hastened to add, clearly picking up on the reason behind Ace’s sudden refusal to meet her eyes, interesting himself instead with the fake leather cover of the book, “Rouge has been just fine.” Mary chuckled approvingly on Ace looking back up at her questioningly. “She’s had more than enough to keep her occupied recently. Your dad’s quite the character, isn’t he?”

That was certainly one way of describing Roger, Ace had to admit. He could almost imagine how the all-powerful, all-commanding man must have made his presence known once he had found his feet again with Rouge; Ace wouldn’t have been surprised if he had attempted to take over a nurse or two’s jobs, insisting that he could take care of whatever needed doing for his wife.

“Has he frightened off anyone yet?” Ace grumbled, dashing off his signature while double-checking the list of visitors before his entry, not overly keen on having a repeat of the last time he had come to the hospice. “Wouldn’t be the first time he’s thought he was being nice when in fact he was scaring people.”

“Not at all!” Mary said happily. “He’s been a dream, a real help! Why, he changed your mother’s bedding when the girls tried to do it, leaving them free to get on with Rouge’s physio! He’s been a pleasure – he certainly livens up the place!”

So Roger _had_ been interfering. So what else was new? Ace heaved a sigh, thanking Mary and leaving her with the promise of a good, full chat the next time he visited; for now, though, the need to see Rouge overpowered any desire Ace had to listen to more stories of how great Roger was.

A resident who he only knew by sight – an elderly gentleman with wispy gray hair who never seemed to vacate the biggest armchair in the communal area – raised a feeble hand in greeting as Ace made his way to Rouge’s room at the very end of the sunny corridor. Ace smiled and inclined his head politely, wondering only briefly if perhaps this man wished for company outside of the family members who would occasionally be around when Ace stopped off.

He knocked softly on Rouge’s door twice, leaning in to listen before swinging it open. Blessedly, thankfully, this was not going to be a repeat of his last visit at all, just as he had ensured – Rouge sat alone in bed, a heart monitor beeping rhythmically beside her, oxygen mask pulled over her nose and mouth while she read her book.

That was new, Ace thought with a deep frown. While the mask and the canisters of oxygen had been present for some time since admission, Ace had never actually seen her use the mask for anything other than a quick spell following a walk. Panic tingled at his fingertips as he returned Rouge’s smile and closed the door behind himself; new developments were not welcomed in her case.

“How are you, Mom?” Ace asked, leaning in to kiss Rouge’s cheek. Her palm came to rest at his cheek in return, cupping and thumbing along his freckles affectionately. “It’s been weird, not seeing you over the weekend. Has Dad driven you insane yet?”

Rouge smiled indulgently, leaning back into the stacked pillows and watching Ace pull up the chair as close as he could. She didn’t make to hang the mask back up above her head, Ace noted, instead cradling it in her lap as if she were protecting it. Or, perhaps, as if she were afraid that _it_ would no longer protect _her_ if she let it stray too far away.

“I’ve had the most wonderful weekend, darling,” Rouge breathed, her voice frail and thin and doing nothing to settle Ace’s mounting sense of worry, “your father’s been so loving, so attentive… I feel like a newlywed all over again.” She nodded to the window, indicating to a huge bouquet of red and orange hibiscus flowers in a large vase catching the sunlight. “He bought those for me yesterday. He forgot my parents visit on a Monday.” She laughed lightly, looking back to Ace, her soft brown eyes full of love and warmth. “They’re not overly fond of him at the moment, either. It was a bit awkward.”

That, Ace thought, was a really rather generous assessment on Rouge’s part. He knew only too well how his grandparents had taken to Roger’s sudden apparent total abandonment of his wife, refusing to listen to Rouge’s pleads that he meant no ill intent, that he was struggling and hurting just the same as them all. Her mother had dissolved into a transport of rage, demanding to know how Roger could put his own feelings above Rouge’s, above his son’s, even, right when selflessness had become an essential skill to wield.

At the time, Ace had agreed wholeheartedly with his grandmother, although he had declined each of her phone calls summoning him to engage her in a fierce bitchfit about Roger. Now, however, he knew better, that there really _had_ been nothing more than pain, denial, and outright fear driving Roger for all of those weeks. That wasn’t to say that it was okay, that all was miraculously forgiven, but…

“Did he run for it the moment Gran opened her mouth?” Ace grinned, biting back, as ever, the rising sense of unease and pain that never failed to stir on seeing his mother in this condition.

“No, actually,” Rouge said happily, never taking her eyes off Ace’s, seeming like nothing could ever quench her thirst for seeing him there beside her, “he talked to them. Apologised over and over and asked for their forgiveness.”

“And did they?” Ace asked, astonished to learn of this moment of… could he call it weakness? Could prostrating oneself vulnerable and open to attacks be deemed as weak? “Did they forgive him?”

Rouge didn’t answer immediately, searching Ace’s face as if hoping to find the answer there. Or, perhaps, she was simply seeking the response that he would give if Roger were to bare his soul to his son in turn; that was a distressing thought on its own, Ace thought.

At length, she said, “yes, I think so. There’s no sense in carrying anger for each other – I think your Gran realised this by the time there were due to leave.” She paused to catch her breath, hand resting over her heart – Ace took it in his own, palm to back, linking his fingers with hers. They were so thin now, thinner than he remembered them ever being before the cancer. Thin enough to snap like twigs where once they held the strength to support a whole household, a part time job, and a family that she loved above all else. Now, they struggled to clasp the plastic cup of water that Ace passed over when asked, trembling on supporting the weight of it; she would deny help if he offered, he knew, and would not appreciate being reminded that she couldn’t fully manage something as mundane as getting herself a drink.

“How was Dad at the weekend?” Ace asked, more for something to say and divert his own attention away from Rouge’s struggle than out of genuine interest in his old man. He placed the cup back on the nightstand and too up Rouge’s hand again, hoping the she could somehow feel how his heart hurt for her through the gentle contact.

Ace, like Roger (he was loathe to admit), didn’t handle not being able to act, fix, and solve a problem very well. As Rouge had proudly said in the past many a time, Ace strove to get what he wanted and stood by what he believed in no matter what. So here, now, he was in a situation where no amount of dedication and no number of sleepless nights working his ass off were going to see him overcome what he so desired to rid from the world.

He was treated to a tale of the most loving, wonderful weekend that he had ever heard Rouge describe; so touching, in fact, that Ace could scarcely believe that the husband in this story was Roger. Or, rather, that the Roger that she described was the same Roger who Ace had battled with for weeks, practically begging for him to address reality instead of burying his head in the sand and screaming anguish turned inward to drown out the pain.

“He didn’t want to talk about work at first,” Rouge said slowly, stemming her flow of chatter with a deep, heaved breath, “he said it wasn’t important, that we should talk about happier things.” She paused again, and this time she couldn’t hide the fact that she was struggling to draw adequate breath.

Heart leaping to beat furious in his throat on her first indication of discomfort, Ace grabbed for the oxygen mask and brought it to her face as gently as he could. It was a mark of how necessary the damn thing was, the way that she didn’t protest it, instead clinging to it like a life support ring in the middle of the vast, bottomless ocean. On reflection, Ace realised with a sickening sadness that that was precisely what it was for her.

And yet Rouge battled on. After a moment of deep, sucking breaths she removed the mask again and, as if there had been no interruption, as if Ace wasn’t watching her nervously with tears pricking at his eyes, Rouge continued.

“I miss the mundane,” she said hoarsely, eyes fluttering shut, “the little things that make up his daily life. The things that make me feel normal again.”

“I can tell you all the boring things that happened today, if you like,” Ace said quickly, sincerely detesting that hot flush of panic that washed over him. They were getting too close to the elephant in the room – the one that lurked furtive among the oxygen tanks, her heart monitor that rhythmically beeped, the IV drip that hung suspended, unused, waiting patiently to be called back into service at a moment’s notice… “You wanna hear all about the toilet paper I didn’t notice was stuck to my shoe until I was back at my desk? People _really_ need to learn to pick up after themselves.”

The way Rouge regarded him left Ace feeling flushed once again, but with something vastly different to panic this time. He knew that look – that look never changed, no matter how sick she got or how fatigued she was. Rouge wanted the _gossip_ , the details, the next installment in Ace’s exciting development with Marco.

“I would much rather hear about your lovely doctor, sweetheart,” Rouge said quietly, confirming Ace’s suspicions with a gentle smile that he mirrored as a wide, shy grin. “You must have plenty to tell me from the last few days.”

Oh, he did. More had happened to him in the last week than had ever happened before, romantically speaking. Coming to learn about Marco’s past, developing feelings beyond anything that he thought he was capable of at the best of times, never mind now, in the midst of the worst possible situation that life could have ever dealt him, surely… It all still left Ace reeling and, despite everything that sought to challenge and hurt him right now, made him feel hopeful and even just that tiny bit excited for the future. A strange concept, really, being equally terrified for tomorrow and yet _so_ looking forward to what the next couple of months brought.

But as he looked into her eyes, their shape a perfect mirror image of his own, Ace felt distinctly guilty. He was no stranger to this – it needled at him constantly, screaming for him to spend this period of his life alone and hurting because that was the _right_ response to impending loss, wasn’t it? – but if he were to argue the case, Rouge would shoot it down in a heartbeat.

No sound left him when he opened his mouth to tell his mother that he had done it, had confessed his affections to Marco and had had them returned. He couldn’t begin to tell her how he had woken in Marco’s bed not once, but twice, both times rising to feel more content and safer than he ever had done. She would be over the moon to learn that Ace felt _cared for_ by someone other than his family, his closest friends, for the first time in his life.

But he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t say it. Even attempting to form Marco’s name left his mind blank, suddenly unable to translate name into sound.

So instead he shrugged and did what he truly believed was best – he lied to her.

“There’s not much to tell.” Ace tried his damn best to keep his tone level, maintain eye contact, and slip into the sincerest smile he could muster. He was good at this; he was good at diverting attention away from whatever happened to be the topic that he didn’t want to discuss. “We both went to Dr. Thatch’s daughter’s birthday party, but that was pretty uneventful, just a standard day out at an amusement park with three kids and my boss.”

Rouge’s expression dropped in disappointment, shoulders following suit to sag against the pillows again. As much as he hated to see her react like this, and as bad as he felt for being the one to do it to her, Ace stood by his decision. While finding happiness amidst the wreckage of a life torn apart was one thing, flouting it in Rouge’s face was entirely another, regardless of what she said.

“Sorry,” Ace offered when Rouge didn’t say anything, “I know you said you want me to get on with my life and everything, but I guess it’s still too early for anything to happen?”

Which, in all honesty, was a very reasonable argument.

With a flush of relief on Ace’s part, Rouge nodded and seemed to accept this, although she said, “such a shame. You both really like each other, from what you’ve told me. Maybe I should have a word with this doctor and find out what the problem is.”

Now there was a fun thought – Rouge scolding Marco like a naughty child for the crime of not getting it on with her son quickly enough for her liking.

“Yeah, we like each other, all right,” Ace said quietly, feeling his cheeks beginning to warm with the memory of Marco’s hushed words of adoration mouthed to his ear, “I mean,” he added quickly when Rouge looked curiously at him, “he gives off all the signals, so I _think_ he likes me. I can’t know for sure.” Man, this did not feel good at all.

Comfortable silence drew around them while Rouge absently skimmed her thumb along the ridge of the oxygen mask. On watching her face, Ace had to wonder what she was thinking to make her look past the hibiscus flowers and away to something that he couldn’t see, deep in her own momentary world. With a blink she tilted her head back to him and smiled with more effort than Ace was comfortable with her needing.

“What kind of doctor did you say he was again?” Rouge asked, seeming to struggle with her words a little. As she raised the mask back to her face, she said, “I can’t quite remember what you said his specialty is…”

“Cardiology,” Ace answered at once. Rouge nodded and drew another oxygenated breath from her mask.

“That was it,” Rouge said almost dreamily, squeezing Ace’s fingers between her own thinner ones, “you’ve fallen for someone who spends their life looking after the hearts of others.” She sighed contentedly, eyelids drifting closed in a long, tired blink. “That’s so romantic, Ace. _Incredibly_ romantic.” Ace merely huffed a laugh through his nose, gazing fondly at his mother. Trust her to find the beauty in just about anything that he told her. “And hopefully, with a bit of luck, he’ll look after yours, too.” Her eyes seemed to sparkle despite Ace’s groan.

“Mom, please,” he implored, trying not to laugh, “that’s a bit sappy for me.”

A knock at the door interrupted just as Rouge opened her mouth to respond, and, with a flash of a worried look at him that made Ace’s stomach lurch unpleasantly, Rouge tried to call, “come in, it’s open.”

Despite her weak, strained voice, the person on the other side of the door seemed to hear her perfectly well. Much to Ace’s intense annoyance that mingled furiously with the urgent need to _bolt_ , Roger, of all people, admitted himself into the room. The only minute, marginal silver lining was that he looked distinctly uncomfortable as well, and not even remotely surprised to see Ace rising from the chair beside Rouge, looking him over like he was something disgusting dragged in by one of Marco’s cats.

Roger’s total lack of reaction to Ace’s presence, coupled with Rouge’s clear unease, told Ace all he needed to know about his father’s timing. This hadn’t been a chance meeting, nor an accident. So Roger wanted to see him too? Too bad he didn’t want to speak to him in return.

“Ace,” Roger said, voice lacking its usual power, that commanding confidence that he so easily exerted over anyone and anything that he clapped eyes on, “don’t go.”

Ace scoffed, yet the clear plead in his father’s tone stayed his feet. That, and Rouge’s hand at his wrist, soothing over his hand, thumb tracing the inside of his wrist to seek his pulse. A habit of hers from his childhood, and one that she had taught him as a form of self-comfort for when life became too much.

“I didn’t know you were coming today,” Ace said, eyes trained to the floor – Roger’s expression was too open, too vulnerable for Ace to be able to address him right now. If he did, then something awful like _sympathy_ might start to grow for him. “Or at least, not yet. You’re supposed to be at work.”

“I’ve reduced my hours,” Roger explained, and credit to him where it was due, he didn’t flinch when Ace glared at him, this news enough to draw his focus, “as of yesterday. I’ll finish earlier so I can come straight here after work.”

“Really?” Ace asked, amazed. _“You?”_ Realistically speaking, it shouldn’t have been possible. But, then again, Ace had no idea who Roger would have to ask for permission to change his working times… or if he even _had_ anyone that he reported to about things like that.

His surprise was waved off, though, and Roger strode across the room to plant a kiss on Rouge’s cheek from the other side of the bed. When he lingered to bump his forehead to hers, murmuring softly about whether she was okay, had she eaten enough, was she comfortable, Ace suddenly and overwhelmingly felt like he was intruding on something highly personal.

“I should go,” he mumbled, running a hand through his hair. He hadn’t had his fill of time with Rouge, and misery pooled somewhere deep within him on looking reluctantly back to her wide, searching eyes. Time was running out, their sand timer trickling away unseen and unheard, and yet here he was again, wasting it because of the likes of Roger.

“No,” Roger said at once, not missing how Rouge’s breath hitched in her chest, how her grip around her son’s wrist tightened to the maximum she could manage, “stay. You should spend as much time here as you can.” The weight of the words left unspoken pressed upon Ace, leaving him dry-mouthed and angry – _you haven’t visited for days. How can you excuse that kind of behavior?_

Oh, how Ace longed to bitch back, to throw insults and demand to know how Roger could judge him when he himself had committed a far graver sin than Ace. He wanted to talk about absences? He had no leg to stand on.

Instead, though, Ace swallowed and took Rouge’s hand in his own, holding back the stream of vitriol for her sake.

“I’d rather leave you both in peace,” he said, directing his words to Rouge, not Roger, “let you catch up.”

“But you’ve barely been here two minutes,” Rouge said, clearly hurt, “we should talk this through, Ace, discuss things and settle the tension.”

“There’s no tension,” Ace said at once, the most obvious, futile lie he’d ever told – he was really full of them today, wasn’t he? “There’s nothing to talk about.” He stooped to kiss her too, turning away and bolting like a mouse down its hole. Running away from Roger, just as Roger had run away from Rouge and himself.

The simple fact of the matter remained that Ace plainly didn’t know how to deal with Roger. The blame and anger may have been abating, but the shock of seeing him in person when he hadn’t expected to didn’t help in the slightest. Running away was not his way of doing things – he faced everything head on in life as a general rule, following Roger’s own general trait – but this was different. Hell, if Roger was excused for hiding when he couldn’t face Rouge, surely Ace’s actions now could be permitted too?

Regardless of whether he was permitted or not, pounded through his veins as he left the room and marched back up the corridor, intent on going to the gym and sweating out the sadness and guilt. This wasn’t like him at all; this wasn’t in any way in keeping with himself. Fuck Roger for everything.

The elderly, wispy-haired gentleman was still in his chair as Ace stormed past, his sunken eyes following him as he passed. It unnerved Ace a little, making him falter and peer back at the man. Distressingly, this slowed him down just enough, and turned his attention away from all thoughts of his car and fucking off into the city, to give Roger time to catch up enough to come into earshot.

“Ace,” Roger urged, gripping his arm tightly by the elbow before Ace could recover from the shock of him suddenly being all up in his space, “don’t leave. Please. I understand that you probably can’t stand the sight of me right now—"

Struggling against Roger was as productive as trying to get Thatch to submit a validating spreadsheet on time. Twist in his grip as he might, Ace found he couldn’t pull himself free without risking causing a scene in front of their unlikely spectator.

“Do you?” Ace hissed, temper flaring boiling hot under his skin. “Do you really have any idea how angry I am with you?” He sighed hard through his nose, irritated, oddly enough, by how Roger _didn’t_ jump to defend himself. At least that would have given Ace something to work with rather than the somber, repentant look that masked Roger’s face, entirely foreign and quite unnerving. “I’m thrilled to see Mom so happy again,” he continued, Roger’s lack of response one so uncharacteristic, “and I couldn’t be happier to see you’ve come to your damn senses, but you can’t just expect me to follow your lead and get over it just like that. I can’t do it. I need some time.”

“And you shall have it,” Roger nodded fervently, lowering his voice a little. “I’m not asking for you to forgive me right this moment. I’m merely asking for you to listen to me. Let me talk to you.” His own sigh rippled his thick mustache, and to Ace’s mild surprise, Roger cast a look over his shoulder to the elderly gentleman in his high-backed armchair. Ace had the distinct impression that the elderly man was not so subtly trying to listen in on what was probably the most entertaining drama he’d seen for some time.

He wasn’t ready for this. It was awkward at the best of times, those rare occasions when Roger chilled the hell out enough to attempt one of his _heart to heart_ chats, without the added bonus of messy emotions mixed in right now.

Now that they were in such close proximity, Ace couldn’t help but notice the difference in his father. Curiously, Roger looked _better_ than he had done when Ace had last been within touching distance of him, like he had had a few decent nights’ sleep and good, honest meals. Perhaps opening up and talking would do further good for Roger, and maybe even Ace too?

“Dad,” Ace began, but Roger cut him off.

“I can’t fix this,” Roger said curtly, sounding unusually angry with himself.

“No one can,” Ace said, alarmed to find himself suddenly wanting to offer comfort. Roger looked drained and drawn, something that Ace had seldom seen in his father prior to hell arriving on Earth. The look shook him to his core, awoke the blinding need to _help_ , even if the one in question was Roger. “No one’s expecting you to be able to fix this situation.”

But Roger shook his head irritably and corrected him. “I mean I can’t fix our relationship, Ace. I can’t undo what I’ve done, and no amount of apologising to you – no number of bunches of flowers or nights spent in that damn chair beside your mother – will make up for what I’ve done. All I can do is choose to do the right thing by both of you from now on.”

A door swung open further up the corridor and two nurses exited another bedroom, laughing cheerfully while promising to pop back in to see the occupant once their family had visited. It seemed to click for Roger in the same instant as it did for Ace that this was probably not a scene that they wanted others to see if they could help it. Roger dropped Ace’s arm quickly, flexing his fingers with a sickening crunch while Ace massaged his elbow.

He didn’t blink, looking from Ace’s left eye to right as if trying to spot something hidden in their depths that Ace would refuse to voice. Whether he found it there or not, Ace had no idea, but Roger concluded with, “please, Ace, let me do the right thing now. Just talk to me for a few minutes, that’s all I ask for. Well,” the faintest twitch of a smile tugged the mustache up, “that, and don’t run out on Rouge like that. She deserves you right now.”

A few hurried, hushed words and a splutter of indignation from Ace later, he agreed to Roger’s request for a moment of his time. He wasn’t so proud as to deny his father when Roger asked so sincerely, genuinely beseeching Ace and, when asked if there was anything in particular that he wanted to discuss, seemed to hold back. There was something trying to get out of Roger that didn’t pertain to demonstrating that he was, in fact, only human like Ace, and when Ace had peered questioningly at Roger, he hadn’t elaborated.

After rushing an apology and side-stepping the question as to whether he would come back to spend more time with her after his chat with Roger, Ace bade Rouge farewell for a second time and left for the car park out the front of the hospice. He felt lighter now despite the trepidation balling low in his stomach, the fear of the unknown and of, well, Roger in general mounting the closer he got to the glass front doors.

The sleek black Audi was easy to spot, given that Roger had pulled into the spot right beside Ace’s shabby little Peugeot. With a snort of disgust Ace shook his head at the sight of the thing, a physical symbol for all that Roger had obtained and gained through his lifelong conquest of reaching the top.

When prompted by an inpatient wave of Roger’s hand, Ace got into the passenger seat of the luxurious Audi, the stench of the expensive leather hitting him in the back of the throat as ever.

There was no protesting, no fighting, no turning on heels and running away from his father this time. No matter how cornered and trapped he now felt within the confines of the car, less than a foot away from Roger where he leaned between the seats, Ace would deal with it.

What left Roger’s mouth caught Ace off guard, though. Where he had been expecting further apologies and perhaps an appeal to Ace’s better nature, neither came. Instead, Roger cleared his throat and adopted that tone of voice that Ace had heard him use countless times when work had had the audacity to ring him on his personal cell out of office hours. Roger meant business, and Ace sat up a little straighter to better prepare.

“Ace,” he said levelly, watching his own fingers contract and relax, contract and relax around the steering wheel, “we have things to discuss about Rouge’s care. Medical things.” He drew a deep breath, and Ace had to wonder if perhaps Roger’s heart had threatened to stop at that moment just like Ace’s had. “I’ve been in contact with her palliative care physician over the last couple of days.”

For the briefest of startling moments, Ace wondered if Roger was perhaps about to cry. It panicked him slightly, hearing Roger’s voice hitch and his breath choke as it did on saying the dreaded word _palliative_. End of life care. The very abrupt reminder slapped into their hands that this hospice was not a hospital ward, nor was it a sunny, well-equipped hotel. On casting a furtive glance at it, Ace suddenly felt cold and unable to regard it warmly as he had grown to do.

His skin prickled unpleasantly as he said, “oh, have you?” A feeble, useless response if ever there was one, but words temporarily failed Ace. This was, once again, starting to all become a little too _real_. “Just you?” Something from work clicked in his mind when Roger nodded. “Doesn’t that breach patient confidentiality?”

“No,” Roger said crisply, and Ace was alarmingly visited by the sudden wish for Roger to look at him rather than his own hands. “Rouge signed a form over the weekend that gives me permission to speak with her specialist without her present. It makes things easier for her, you understand,” Roger added gruffly, as if Ace had just suggested that he was attempting to rob Rouge of her agency, “means she now has to deal with less consultations and people trying to engage her when she isn’t up to it. You know she’s far too polite to tell any of the staff to leave her alone if she’s too tired, or—” he cut himself short, chewing on his lower lip for a second before finishing off with, “or if she just doesn’t to talk about such things.”

Silence spanned between them for a moment as Ace watched a great, fat wood pigeon land in one of the trees that lined their end of the car park. The stupid creature was too heavy for the spindly branch it had chosen to perch on, bowing ominously under its weight. With a ruffle of its gray feathers it adjusted its footing under its bulk and, still bobbing comically in the air, began to trill its familiar song.

“Does that apply to you, too?” Ace asked, the question mundane yet presenting itself as necessary, “does she suffer through your idle chatter when you can’t take a hint and leave her alone?”

Something akin to a snort of laughter escaped Roger’s nose, diverting Ace’s full attention back to him and away from the merrily bouncing pigeon. “Not even a little,” Roger said, the suggestion of a smile working under the moustache, “she’s more than happy to tell me to clear off if she wants a nap or some quiet time with her book.” He jerked his chin over his right shoulder. “Took myself off for a walk into the town when she asked me to give her some peace for an hour on Sunday,” he said, tone coming gentle and warming Ace, curiously, “and I found the flower shop she likes.” That explained the enormous bunch of flowers in her room; Roger must have been a sight, carrying those back over a mile on foot.

Despite how thinking about the subject made Ace feel on the verge of being sick, heart fluttering in his chest like he was preparing for a physical attack rather than simply talking, he asked, “so this doctor – what’ve you talked to him about?”

The expensive leather creaked softly as Roger shifted in his seat, clearly not comfortable with this conversation despite being the one to bundle them up and stuff them in the car to have it. Even though he was now trying, dealing with everything appropriately and so clearly taking the initiative by arranging to speak with the physician in charge of Rouge’s care, Ace assumed, it was still abundantly plain that Roger was struggling through this.

“His name’s Dr. Izou Shinmon,” Roger began, and, somewhat distressingly, didn’t respond to Ace’s blatant body language, the open invitation to look back at his son in return and perhaps share the burden of his pain. Although, Ace accepted as Roger stoically refused to meet his eyes, that was probably the goal of this talk, of… wherever this was going, if Ace’s prediction was proven correct. “Rouge’s oncologist recommended him when her need for palliative care first came up… apparently.”

The regret was there again, laced tight into Roger’s words, angry and disappointed in himself for not being present at that particular meeting.

“I’ve never spoken to him, either,” Ace clarified quickly, the closed off look on Roger’s face driving him to speak, “ I didn’t look at the name of the doctor taking over her care, if that helps.” At the time, it hadn’t seemed important to know the identity of the person who would speak of death, passing, and _keeping comfortable_ with a false mask of caring concern plastered on their face. “I only know the specialist nurses who saw Mom a few times.” They, at the very least, had seemed to genuinely care, giving Ace the helpline phone number and encouraging him to call if he ever needed help with anything.

Even after getting to know Marco – after learning of how he loved and cared about his patients (or, rather, the ones that he remembered) – Ace couldn’t apply that kind of knowledge to some faceless palliative care physician. The sting of some doctor being indifferent to Rouge’s case – of Rouge simply being a hospital number and not an individual – _hurt._

Roger nodded and then looked up from his hands suddenly as movement in front of them caught his – and Ace’s – attention. The enormous pigeon was taking flight with what looked like great difficulty, its branch sagging further still as it did its best to push off from it.

The maddening urge to laugh caught Ace, but one look back at his father’s face stifled any sound he may have made. There was no trace of fight in Roger, his usual ferocity gone. In its place lay what Ace could only describe as a man beaten down and left to crumble, robbed of the life he was meant to live and carrying the sadness of a thousand men. He looked _human_ – unnervingly so – and quite helpless… nothing like the Roger that Ace knew so well.

Ace swallowed thickly, fists balling in his lap as he thought desperately for something comforting to say – but what? All that came to mind felt hollow and false, words that he himself didn’t believe in the slightest. He needed Marco here – _he_ was the one who always knew exactly what to say, meaning every word of it.

“I can’t do this alone,” Roger admitted, voice cracked and fractured unlike anything Ace had ever heard before. “I can’t go sit in this doctor’s office and smile while he details the steps of Rouge’s final days. I _can’t_.” He clenched his teeth, words gritted and pained, knuckles turning white with how hard he gripped the steering wheel. “I can’t listen to him reel off expectations we should have, or what’s going to happen to her now. I’m—” He sucked in a gasping, shuddering breath, and Ace, without thinking, gripped Roger’s upper arm hard. Roger nodded briskly, grinding his teeth before trying again. “I’m afraid,” he ground out, still avoiding Ace’s eyes and flaring at the car’s dashboard, “no, I’m _terrified_ that I’ll lose my nerve again, Ace. Petrified.” He clapped a palm to his forehead and sighed a shaky breath. “I don’t think I can do this without you. I need you now more than I ever have done.”

If Ace had thought that Roger appeared vulnerable and lost before, that was nothing compared to now. He was pale and clammy, sweaty fingerprints left behind as evidence on the black steering wheel. Nothing more than a man at the end of his emotional tether, helplessly trying to navigate the waters of such unknown, unwelcome territory.

No one should have to be made to struggle through those currents alone – not when Ace could provide a raft on which to drag Roger back from total desolation. Not when he could share Roger’s pain and, in turn, his own.

Gone was the time for laying blame, for pointing fingers and judging past decisions – Ace could see that now. Now it was his turn to take care of Roger and do what was right, not what was easy.

“It’s okay, Dad.”

On taking the hand that remained at the wheel in his own and squeezing it hard, Ace could have sworn that the weight of the blame he still carried quite suddenly… lifted. The air didn’t feel so thick in Roger’s presence all of a sudden; Ace’s heart though throbbing full of pain and fear, no longer harboured that intense prickle of bitter anger that had refused to fully abate regardless of Roger’s change of heart.

Roger finally looked round at Ace. The deep frown lines lessened, relaxing to give way to something far more open, more loving for his son.

And Ace let it go. All of it.

“You won’t do it alone,” Ace assured fiercely, other hand joining in too to grip Roger’s between both, “you won’t be going through anything alone. From now on, we’re doing this together. I’ll support you for as long as you swear you’ll support me, support Mom.” He drew in a deep breath, refusing to drop his gaze when Roger, who was clearly startled and touched, actually teared up for the first time in Ace’s recent memory. “How does that sound?” He prompted Roger to react outside of staring like he was engraving Ace’s face to his memory, frightened of forgetting any details of this moment.

“Brilliant,” Roger said weakly, “that’s everything I could ask for.” He thumbed at his eyes, heaving a sniff. “You’re a far better man than I am, Ace,” said, voice now coming strong once again, the CEO persona back in place after his moment of exposing the soft, delicate core of a man very much hurting and very much afraid. “I’m so proud of you, do you know that? You’re such an outstanding man, I don’t know what I…” He faltered before finishing, “I don’t know what I ever did to deserve a son like you.”

“Neither do I,” Ace smiled thinly, raising a small chuckle and squeeze of his fingers from Roger.

“Marco is a seriously lucky man,” Roger added, eyes regaining their mischievous twinkle from nowhere, “oh, yes,” he smiled as Ace’s mouth fell open, aghast, “your mother’s told me all about your doctor. I did well, getting you into cardiology, didn’t I?” He barked a small laugh at Ace’s agitated groan. “He would be a fool to not act and left you slip on by.”

Ace released Roger’s hand like it was on fire, sighing as Roger chortled away to himself. He sure did recover quickly, didn’t he? Well… that, or he was a master of distracting them both from the pain.

“I haven’t told Mom yet,” Ace said, picking his words carefully, and this time it was his turn to not quite meet Roger’s eager, searching gaze, “but things _happened_ over the weekend. Don’t,” he pleaded as Roger practically _swelled_ beside him, gearing himself up for what could only be his routine congratulatory bear hug that he was apt to dishing out whenever Ace proclaimed to have found someone worthwhile, “I feel awful about it. I don’t know how to tell her.”

“Awful?” Roger sounded bemused and, when Ace chanced a glance at him, he looked it, too. “Why on Earth would you feel awful about it? He sounds like a great guy, if Rouge hasn’t been elaborating.”

Twisting the hem of his shirt between his fingers, Ace said quietly, “the timing’s all wrong, isn’t it? I feel guilty for being happy right now. Like, _really_ guilty.”

Roger considered this, humming low and long. As they gazed absently out of the windscreen, that pigeon – at least it _looked_ like the same pigeon – came back for another go at seating itself on the thin, now heavily bowing tree branch.

“I know your mother,” Roger said gently, the tenderness in his words catching Ace entirely off guard, “and I know that the only thing she craves is your happiness. That’s all she’s ever wanted. You are her world, Ace, and she would do anything to see you truly happy. Anything at all. So please,” he patted his son’s knee fondly, a genuine smile beaming at him when Ace looked round, “if you’ve found a chance at something special – something _really_ special that feels _right_ , that’s different to the other lazy layabouts that you’ve dated in the past—"

“Thanks, Dad—”

Then _take it_ ,” Roger urged, slapping fondly to Ace’s knee before settling back into his seat. “You’ll only regret it if you overthink the timing and let something that’s making you feel truly loved slip by. People like Marco – people who make you feel something more than just plain old excitement, because that fades, Ace, that fades damn fast – they don’t come into our lives very often.”

Ace paused before voicing his next thought. “I take it that Mom is one of those people for you?” He asked, looking up at Roger’s broad frame.

That tenderness was back, spinning fine threads through Roger’s words as he nodded and said, “she’s the _only_ person who’s ever made me feel like that.” There was no questioning whether they both thought the same thing at that moment, simultaneously finishing off the sentence together in their minds and looking away with frantic blinks: _and now I’m on the verge of losing her_.

When he got out of the car a moment later, Ace checked his phone to find a new message waiting for him, the little light at the top of the screen blinking patiently. On unlocking it he found a text from Marco that made his heart positively leap, sending it careening off on a path in perfect parallel to the anxious, tense one that had been guiding it in the car mere moments before.

_I’m making dinner_ , the text read, _if I can interest you in joining me. Penne arrabiata – think I’ve made it too hot. You like it hot, right?_ He did, and Ace bit back a laugh at the thought of Marco attempting to counter the raging heat of too many chilis in the fiery sauce. _I thought you could tell me some of your favorite childhood stories about your Mom, if you’re up for it. I’d love to hear whatever you have. What do you think?_

He thought it sounded perfect. He thought it sounded like the exact thing he needed after that evening – a night of food, reminiscing, and cuddling up in Marco’s lap.

But first he had something to do.

“Dad,” Ace said, pocketing his phone after hastily dashing off a promise of being with Marco as soon as he could, “wait.” Roger paused at the foot of the stairs back into the hospital, looking enquiringly back at his son. “I want to tell Mom about Marco. Properly,” he added when Roger raised his eyebrows. “Would you…” he scuffed his shoe into the ground, watching the small puff of dirt that clouded as a result, “would you like to hear about him, too? Seeing as you’ve only heard Mom’s interpretation of everything so far.”

Roger beamed at him wide, all of his teeth showing.

Ace took that as a yes and followed after him, feeling simultaneously lighter and more weighed down than ever before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... five months have somehow passed since the last update. A lot happened in my life that made writing this particular fic hard, but its mostly all over now so I should be able to work on this more from here on. I [made a post about it on my Tumblr blog](https://chromiwrites.tumblr.com/post/612702993279811584/i-just-want-to-make-a-post-for-anyone-who-follows) last month, if anyone's interested.
> 
> I'm now on [my new Tumblr account](https://chromiwrites.tumblr.com/) if you want to come say hi! I am still open for prompts or a chat, as ever.
> 
> Comments and kudos let me know if I'm doing something right, and I always love your feedback!


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